The Keys To The Cage (And The Devil To Pay)
by ArizonaDreamParis
Summary: The three of them apart they mean Trouble, all together, what are they? (Harry and Dean are trying to survive. Sam is slowly drifting down a dark and winding road.) Part 3 of the Humanity 'Verse.
1. Chapter 1: Is There Anybody Up There?

**Disclaimer: I do not own neither Harry Potter nor Surpernatural.**

**Author's note: So this part of the serie will be done in three chapters, that will cover all of the fourth season, so be patient please. I will try to update as quickly as I can :) The first chapter will be from Season 4 Episode 2: "Are you there, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester." to Episode 8: "Wishful Thinking."**

**Warning: For now, strong T but the rating may change along the way**

**So there we go...**

* * *

_Is There Anybody Up There?_

Dean noticing the ringing silence behind him and realizing that Bobby and Sam were still there, probably looking at them with their mouths hanging open, slowly stepped out of the desperate embrace disentangling the surprisingly strong grip Harry had on him. Harry seemed to come into himself again looking up at him smiling the familiar little smile, always with a sad edge to it. He quirked the corners of his lips in response.

"Alright?" He murmured softly. The smaller man nodded hesitantly in answer with a self-depreciative twist of his mouth that he understood all too well. After all he saw it in the mirror no later than this morning.

He turned back around marching into the house; purposefully ignoring the incredulous looks the other two were shooting them. He felt the gruff hunter and his little brother stepping into the living room but not the one he wanted to have in with him the most. Going backwards in the hall, he saw the green-eyed man hovering uncertainly at the doorway, he felt his features softening automatically, "Okay." He whispered to himself.

"Well, come on in kiddo." He said warmly and casually out loud.

The teen's head snapped up and locked on his face shock painted all over his expression and God he forgot how the kid's eyes were so intense. The younger man poked his upper body past the door and cautiously stepped inside his eyes darting all over the place.

"Dean get your ass in here and explain." He heard Bobby's drawling accent sharply shouting from his desk and laughed lowly when he saw the startled motion Harry made at that. Who then looked up at him annoyed, he lifted his hands innocently. Still chuckling when he walked back in the only living space in Bobby's shackle house, this time hearing light footsteps following him.

"Care to share Dean?" His brother asked with a bitch face firmly in place.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the thin form of Harry glancing in awe at the books crawling all around the old house. "Harry." He called careful to keep his voice soft having seen the boy's reaction mere seconds ago. Harry came and placed himself at his right in a defensive stance.

"First drink this boy." Dean caught the flinch at the term used and narrowed his eyes.

"You think I'm going to drink that shot of Merlin knows what, given to me by a stranger? No you first." He heard the incredulous reply and firm command. He smirked, good kid, good _(who the hell is Merlin though (apart from the obvious)?)._ But he's not really a kid is he? He didn't know how much time the other had spent in Hell but from what Alastair used to suggest it must have been a long time, even though he couldn't really help himself the kid looked fourteen, fifteen at the most.

Bobby seemed surprise first by the English accent (he could see his brother stunned face and couldn't help but smile, a little private smile) and impress by the display from the seemingly meek boy. He knew for a fact it was bullshit, Harry was nothing but if you just bothered to look past the appearance. Bobby drunk the shot he prepared and made another one that Harry took; looking at it like it was going to bite him. He intervened before they passed the night like that.

"It's okay Harry, it's just holy water." The other looked at him curiously, shrugged and seemed to think, "_fuck it_" and drunk it.

Nothing happened and all the hunters in the room let out the relaxed sight they had been holding.

"Well?" Sam said impatiently.

"Bobby, Sam, this is Harry, I met hi-" Oh fuck, he didn't think of that, he did say he didn't remember Hell so he couldn't very well announce he had met the younger man down there, fuck, fu-

"Dean saved me from a ghost a while back." Harry lied smoothly catching on to his dilemma and he directed his gaze at him startled, relieved and thankful for his insight.

"That's all well and good but what are you doing here?" Bobby asked demandingly and this time he was directing his sharp blue eyes at him.

Shit.

"Harry hasn't got anywhere else to go Bobby, I just, I don't know, I…" He trailed off lamely, Bobby softened to a look of understanding and he was glad someone did because he damn well didn't comprehend why he felt like that towards the young man, he just knew he did. It was how he worked, he knew he had all those emotions he just didn't question them.

He realized he should probably start soon.

"You're British!" His dork of a brother suddenly exclaimed apparently finally getting out of his daze. Harry looked up at him amusingly and Dean laughed inwardly at the fact that Harry had to freaking craned his neck to catch his giant of a brother's hazel-brown eyes.

"You're tall." Harry announced in a deadpan voice. He couldn't hold it; he chuckled, forgetting about angels, God and apocalypses for a moment at the interaction between the two.

Sam blushed mumbling "Right." under his breath.

"Smooth, Sammy, real smooth." His blush deepened and he mumbled again in his chin something that sounded like "Shut up."

"It's not really that I haven't got anywhere else to go, though that is true…" He pointedly looked at Dean at that and he tried to decipher all the emotions in those eyes but didn't have the time to when they swiveled back to a point on the wall. "More that a man wearing a trench coat brought me here, well, more like teleported me really, spouting something about Dean Winchester needing me."

…

Dean could see the hope in Sam's eyes.

It burned steadily brighter and brighter the more he spoke and he could surely burn the whole house on fire at this point. Sammy had always been too hopeful and it frightened him but it was a part of him that he _knew_, it proved that perhaps his little brother hadn't changed that much during his four months leave of absence.

He was definitely different but maybe the important things were still there.

He could see Harry at the edges of his vision who, for his part looked stuck between skeptical and growing wonder.

"Dean, this is good news." He had to look away from the building emotion and softness he could see itching itself on his brother's features, flinching away from it, pained to be in the presence of emotions that weren't twisted and ugly. Hell took things from him he didn't know he missed until he realized their absence.

Harry had his head on the wall supporting him, his eyes closed tightly like he could block the sound of his brother's voice simply by putting a black wall in front of his eyes.

"How?" He asked still observing Harry who had put two arms around himself protectively and was still keeping his green orbs hidden, damn it, he wanted to see them. Harry stilled and snapped his eyes open and locked them on his own like he had heard him, he could see the panic receding slowly as he took in his surroundings again. He approached him, not touching but just to try to be a comforting presence, something known by Harry, pressing himself on his left on the same wall.

It worked.

He automatically felt the smaller male leaning unconsciously into his warmth.

His brother stopped talking mid-sentence to stare at them with an indefinable expression before straightening again "Look, I know you're no choirboy about this stuff but this is becoming less and less about faith and more and more about proof." Trying desperately to pass on his faith to the rest of them.

"Proof", Dean tried hard not to snap at Sam for his belief, looking away from Harry and turning a skeptical gaze up at his brother, as always hating the extra inches his _little_ brother had on him. "Proof that there is a God out there that actually gives a crap about me personally, I'm sorry but I'm not buying it."

"Why?" His brother asked grasping at straws in the front of his lack of faith.

"Because, if there is a God, why would he give a crap about me?" He choked out, those words felt too real at the moment, hitting too close to home and he wondered if his brother got that, understood the weight of them.

He felt a small hand placing itself on his shoulder and he followed it down to the pale and gaunt face, Jesus he needed to feed the kid, of Harry.

"Dean, like you said, if there is a God, well, why wouldn't he?" And this simple innocent question asked by the squirt who was looking up at him with trust in the greenest eyes he had ever seen.

Fuck, asked by someone who he had almost torture down under, who _knew_ he would have done it too if Castiel hadn't come precisely at that moment (and he was forever grateful to the maybe-angel for keeping him from doing that more than for getting him out of Hell), would have done it because he had to, because _pain, relief, splashes of blood all over him, screams in his ears, "make them feel your pain Dean", no, yes, cut deep, destroy, not death, death is too easy, endless fire in his veins and…_

…Snap!

This question asked by someone who _knew, _and just didn't care.

It shook him more than anything his brother could have said.

"Start reading." Bobby broke the frozen silence that had encompassed the room.

"You are getting me some pie and dude, Harry what do you want? Harry you're eating you're far too thin for your own good." He ordered firmly, he wouldn't back down from that. He saw the defiance entering the petite male's form but the other probably saw the resolve he had and he slumped in defeat almost as instantly and mumbled, "Whatever you're having mate." He smiled triumphantly, "Atta boy" and nodded at Sam.

He was relived by the carefree laughter that followed his brother's exit.

-00-

Harry was in an unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar people and the Apocalypse was apparently a thing.

He was starting to think that on his grave it should have said: _Harry Potter, a beloved friend and Fate's number one Bitch since 1981 is buried here. _

He was in a make up bed on the floor, he, of course, could have transfigured a cot but, well, last time he checked he was still in a house full of twitchy hunters. Besides he didn't want Dean to find out about his magic that way. He wanted to sit him down and explain everything to him, every single thing from the Dursleys to the Wizarding world to Voldemort and the war… Things he wouldn't have dream of telling anyone else before, he didn't really understand the trust he had in the man or the bond that seemed to have formed itself between them without either of them being aware of it. Perhaps it was because they were both held on the racks for years but he didn't think it was only that, maybe it was because they used to keep each other human, a hard thing to accomplish in the pit, he didn't know.

He just knew it was there.

He didn't want to give it up.

He was trying to keep himself awake in the silent house, his mind still reeling from seeing Sirius and Cedric's ghosts blaming their deaths on him as he still did to this day.

A twisted and dark part of him created by years of abuse from his remaining family, the red-eyed dark wizard, delusional politicians, greasy-haired teachers or even twinkling old men, told him during those countless years in Hell that he deserved it, everything he went through, because if that was what he got for what he did, he surely must have done something wrong in this life or another one. Every time this voice rose above the others in his head he tried to shut it down but it never worked. It stayed there, in the back of his mind, festering.

"The Rising Of The Witnesses." was for him just another way for that taunting voice to express itself.

And after it was over he saw the pitying glances from both the bearded man and Dean's little brother, he hated it. When he was on the floor, flinching from their gazes, he desperately searched for something other than that awful pity and he found it.

He caught muddy green eyes and saw understanding.

He kept that image to push the memories away and suddenly felt a white force, he didn't know how it had a color but it had, pushing on his mind. He tried resisting it but waves after waves of blessed steady calmness won him over.

He fell asleep.

…

A noise coming from the kitchen woke him up and he saw Dean slowly doing the same. They looked at each other then at the rest of the room's occupants but they were the only ones awake which was alarming because paranoid didn't even begin to describe how Bobby seemed to be. They turned back to see a man wearing a trench coat, Castiel, the Angel, Merlin, an angel, he still had a hard time believing it, casually leaning on the kitchen's counter.

He observed the man carefully, for the moment following Dean's lead on this encounter, after all the hunter had already met him. The ridiculous clothes didn't seem to matter when he could feel the power the otherworldly being radiated, luminous blue eyes full of starlight and heavenly grace, he flinched as they settled on him sharp and quietly judging him.

Dean had positioned himself in front of him, a wall of muscle and righteous anger that hid him from the angel's gaze and he put himself as close to the strong back as he could cherishing the protectiveness much more than he would have thought.

"Dean, Harry." A surprisingly deep and gravelly voice came out of the not-man's mouth "Good job on the witnesses."

What? They knew? He thought to himself indignation and disillusion blossoming inside of him. Dean took care of that question for him, adding a little of his signature witted sarcasm and crooked mocking smile at the end because of course he couldn't help himself from antagonizing a being so much more powerful than any of them it wasn't even funny.

But he had to ask.

Side stepping the bigger man in front of him and putting himself in full-view of those penetrating eyes, interrupting Dean before the man got them killed, or worst, "Why are you here? And I don't mean here now, I mean here on earth?"

The far too knowing gaze snapped to him. "Harry Potter, did you know your cries were so loud when you first arrived in Hell that it shook Heaven?" The blue-eyed man asked unmercifully with awe and a disturbing fascination in his tone. He stood there frozen, eyes wide open and mouth dry for what could have been an eternity, he wouldn't know, until Dean put his hand on his arm, grounding him.

"You mean you knowingly let a fuckin' teenager to rot in Hell for years without doing anything about it?!" Dean said marching menacingly towards the intruder seeming to foolishly think that the few inches he had on the vessel the man was occupying were relevant.

A sudden emotion flashed in those sapphire eyes, something that looked a little like guilt before it was quickly covered by the blankness he was getting used to. "Harry made a deal, it was out of our hands and we never received the order to go and rescue him from his damnation."

"But you saved me after only four months." Dean retorted disgusted without missing a beat.

"We were ordered to." An indifferent voice replied.

Harry found his speech again.

"Why?" He whispered weakly.

"Why what?" The gravelly voice curiously asked.

"Just, why? What did I ever do…I-" He protectively put his arms around him looking down at the tiled ground of Bobby's kitchen for some sort of, he didn't know. He was so tired…

Dean gripped his shoulder and tucked him in his side reacting smoothly to his confused and pleading voice. He slumped on the solid shoulder supporting him.

"You know what you did, you dealt with a demon. You may have done it to save a nation and the world but you still used the sinner's way."

"I was seventeen! I couldn't do what they wanted me to do. I wasn't strong enough. I'm not strong enough…" He cried out desperately, he heard a startled gasp behind him but didn't pay attention to it, trying to cling on the grip he had on reality that he felt slipping through his fingers. His breathing was coming in short puffs, his vision getting blurry and he keened, his knees failing him.

Dean caught him.

He was turned around into a firm chest; he felt a hand grasping his.

"Harry, it's Dean, do you feel that, that's my heart, come on squirt, breathe with me. It's okay, it's gonna be okay, you're safe; I'll keep you safe I promise. You can do it, come on."

In.

"There."

Out.

"You're safe."

In.

"It's Dean, you're with me."

Out.

Gun oil, leather and a rough voice.

In.

Okay.

"Okay?" The rough voice whispered in his ear and he realized that they were on the floor and he was tucked beneath Dean's chin gripping fistfuls of his shirt in a death grip.

He didn't move away.

"Sorry." He whispered quietly.

"Happens to the best of us squirt." Dean croaked reassuringly.

Squirt.

He was going to open his mouth to protest the nickname when he realized he liked it, it was a term of endearment not _boy_ or _freak_ or _boy-who-lived_… A hand was petting his hair soothingly and he burrowed himself in the older man's body, not seeing the death glare said man shot up at the strange inhuman being.

Warmth spread through him.

The other occupant of the room that they had forgot about in the heat of his panic attack chose that moment to make himself known once more. Ignoring the entire episode that he probably didn't understand anyway, "We are here for the first time in two thousand years because seals are breaking. The demon Lilith is behind it. Think of the seals as locks on a cage."

Warmth left him to an icy dread that began to pool in his stomach. He heard Dean whispering, "What happens if it opens?"

"Lucifer walks free."

They shouldn't have asked.

They scrambled up at that, having to heave themselves up to fully comprehend the enormity of the situation. He stood there stunned while Dean scoffed and proceeded to offend the trench coat wearing man once more. However he pulled out of his funk when the man backed Dean into a corner.

"You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell, I can throw you back in." Pulling his Gryffindor's foolish bravery out of whatever place it was hiding in. He inserted himself between the two of them pushing the angel away from an obviously distressed Dean and facing him with the sort of glare he usually kept for Voldemort.

"Go." He ordered, surprising himself by the steadiness of his voice, "I don't care if you can smite us with just a glance or that you can throw us back into the pit, we now know, you don't have any business here anymore." Magic filling and magnifying his voice with power.

He vanished, the sound of wings following him.

They woke up, a scream caught halfway up their throats.

-00-

Dean wasn't a stupid man or a simpleton; despite the way he portrayed himself.

He knew something was going on with Sam, had seen the nervous agitation that was plastered all over his brother, had seen his brother disappearing at odd hours of the night since they had left Bobby's with Harry in the backseat because he just wouldn't let the younger male out of his sight, not after Cas's visit, not ever if he had any say in it.

And he had.

His brother had vehemently protested, spouting things like "he's not a hunter", "why Dean?", "we don't even know who he is" and such nonsense. He had taken it in stride with a stone-cold face, not budging from his decision no matter what his brother cared to say. Sam had been a nightmare to be around ever since and he had the feeling it would have been the same with or without Harry.

Sammy just wasn't the same.

He didn't know _what_ caused it and he would have asked except that wasn't the Winchesters way of dealing.

Their dad had taught them the system of stoic lack of communication they now used; he and Sam had simply perfected it with a mix of painful sincerity and lies that were the foundations of their relationship. It used to be made up by the fact that he had understood all of his brother's quirks, every shift of his face, every movement, expression and sentence his brother gave. There was now an ever-growing dangerous gaping chasm between the two of them that they painfully felt but forced themselves to forget.

Dean just didn't know what to do, he didn't understand his brother's secrets and constant agitation and Sam didn't notice his brother's overwhelming fears and nightmares. Demanding to know what was up with Sam meant he would have to share his own secrets and he wasn't ready for that at all. His sleep was full of fire, blood and pain and it was only when he heard Sam leaving to God knows where did he allow himself to fade into slumber that he knew was going to be made of nightmares and not wanting his brother to see him so weak.

So he wasn't surprised, when he came back from his eventful trip to the past, that it was only Harry sleeping in the motel room.

His eyes full of two evil yellow light bulbs, his dad's young limp body and his ears still ringing from his mother's cries.

He took up his flask because that was how he resolved things nowadays.

Castiel was in the room but he was used to the angel's silent presence by now and ignored it to stare at the young man sleeping on the bed that was twisting and turning. He wanted to go there, he hesitated, when Harry arched up the bed letting out a loud whimper in the otherwise silent room his decision was made for him. He closed the distance and sat down on the bed grasping the thin shoulders "Harry." He said firm and commanding. "Harry." This time he shook him because the other was thrashing and hurting himself, his forehead bloody by his scratching and he couldn't see this red on white, wasn't ready for it, for the reminder of what he had almost done and he forcefully folded the younger man into his lap.

It worked.

Harry was gradually calming, cries receding and whimpers trailing off till' he was boneless in his grip, shuffling to get more comfortable, he smiled softly down at the scene. He turned his attention to the Angel stoically regarding the scene "You could have done something, _Angel._" He emphasized derisively.

"He is not my charge." The heavenly being stated impassively and he couldn't help but snort bitterly.

It just wasn't fair, Harry deserved an angel far more then he did, that was for sure.

"Dean."

"What." He snapped irritated because he had begun to fall asleep peacefully for once, soothed by the kid's rhythmic beat of heart but, no, he couldn't rest, he had to be God's bitch again.

"Your brother." Still not looking at the blue-eyed man but pressing the other's body even more into his form as some sort of shield at the mention of his brother because he knew it couldn't be anything good.

"Yes." He said tiredly.

"Your brother is heading down a dangerous road Dean. And we're not sure where it leads." That made his head snapped up all tiredness forgotten in the face of a fucking angel warning him about his brother. "So stop him. Or we will."

He froze, fear clogging the back of his throat and knotting up his tongue. "Where is he?"

"425 Waterman."

Oh, Sammy, what have you done?

…

It was the demon bitch; fucking Ruby man…

Even with a new body he could recognize her damn smirk anywhere. He didn't know if Hell made him more sensitive to the demons but he could see the evil crawling all over her pretty form, all the hidden self-satisfied emotions in the glinting smiles she flashed his brother. He was full of scathing hot rage that reminded him of the pit and he tried to breathe through his nose to calm himself before he would do something he'd regret. He wanted to scream, punch and shake his little brother as his psychic abilities pulsated around him in waves and the demon choked.

He was breathless and weak at the knees as the floor around the trap smoldered with black and red ashes swirling with all the force of hell-fury around the bloody tied up man.

Ruby's smirk took up all of her beautiful face and he wanted to make the bitch suffer so bad his hands trembled with it because he knew how to, Alastair had made sure of that and it was the first time he considered torture since he crawled out.

He was strangely desensitized at the notion.

He could all but imagine all he would do to make her scream for days on end.

He snapped out of it when he saw them making their way outside, the limp body slung in his brother's arms like a symbol of their idiocy between their lop-sided smiles.

He blocked their way out, all his anger making the edges of his vision blurry, filling the space around him with rage that all but wanted to find a reason to jump out of his skin.

"Anything you want to tell me Sam?" His voice controlled making his word cutting and over-articulated.

Sam lost all the confidence air he had a minute ago at the sight of him, good.

"Dean, hold on, okay just Let me-"

He didn't give him the time to finish, "If you say let me explain…" He let the threat hanging meaningfully.

"Are you gonna explain this?"

Sam's body language seemed to all but plead to him, but he wouldn't and couldn't understand what his brother was doing with that black-eyed bitch. Had he forgot everything they've been through, every last goddamn thing their father had taught them?

He made the mistake of making eye contact with _her_ when she put her small delicate hand on his brother's tall frame. His rage that had burned with ice and fire in his gut since he arrived at the horrifying scene chose her, he was glad it wasn't his brother.

Quickly pulling the knife out and backing her violently onto the shelves behind them, he looked her in the eye with a cruel smirk made of all his years in Hell and she finally looked at him with startled fear, oh how he loved that look on her. He was downing the knife on her pale white skin…

…When a strong grip stopped him, "Dean, stop it, Dean." He followed the large hand keeping him from doing what he desperately wanted to do, to his brother's face.

Betrayal cut deeper and harder than all of the torture he went through.

He lost his grip and let himself be strangled by the bitch in his shock.

He came back to himself and injected as much venom as he could in the glare he shot her. He knew by only glancing at the black eyes of her meat-suit that the next time they saw each other, one of them was going to die, he swore to himself that it was gonna be her.

"Dean…" He heard his brother whisper anxiously when Ruby had disappeared with the man's body but he walked away not even looking at him.

He was afraid of what he would do.

-00-

Harry woke up from the best sleep he had had in since, well, forever to a hunched Sam trying to fuse himself with the book he was reading. As always he tried to find something to reach out to the taller brother but Sam was a mystery to him. The man was a tightly wounded ball full of angst and grief that reminded him of himself in his worst years at Hogwarts, it called out to him, he wanted to help, didn't want to be a burden on the brothers shoulders, he wanted to prove his worth and most of all he wanted to understand the taint that was growing every single day on Sam's aura.

He didn't know if it would work out but he had to do something "Hey, Sam-" He didn't really know where he was going with this but he didn't have the time to finish the phrase when Dean walked in slamming the door behind him. He had never seen the hunter like that; he was practically radiating anger, frustration and a helplessness that was heart wrenching to watch.

Ignoring his brother, what in Merlin's name happened?!, and forcefully packing his stuff. "Come on Harry, get up we're leaving." He ordered.

"What-" Sam interrupted him and he had the feeling it wasn't a good idea for him to talk at that particular moment.

"Dean what are you doing? Are, are you leaving?"

"You don't need me, you and Ruby go fight demons." He was confused and who was Ruby again? He was getting up the bed quickly putting on some pants because Dean was already clothed and walking away and he seemed to make a statement of not looking at Sam.

A second later, he understood why.

The punch came flying.

Dean was preparing himself to land another one when he decided enough was enough and put himself quickly between the two men who towered over him. He pushed Dean away from his brother with a hand on his chest grabbing the fist mid-air.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked Dean incredulously.

"Get out of my way Harry, the little shit deserves it." He snarled, teeth bared and features twisted that reminded him of _where_ he had met Dean for the first time.

"I'm sure he doesn't, what the bloody hell is this?! You're brothers!"

"Oh yeah and do you know what my brother had been doing behind our backs for the past month, well come on, let's hear it Sam."

When he saw that Dean wouldn't hit his little brother again, he turned and looked at Sam who for his part was looking at the ground, blood on his lip and shame painted all over him.

Dean continued unmerciful "Do you know how far off the reservation you've gone? How far from normal? From human?"

He had to intervene because he could see the word "freak" wanting out of Dean's mouth.

"Stop it Dean. Just stop it."

"Stay out of this Harry."

"No." He kept his stance in front of Sam protectively even though he was a million inches short to do anything. "Now you tell me what's going on. And I'll get some ice for your brother."

Dean's rage seemed to curl on itself and back in him, leaving the man slumped and drained in the middle of the room. He turned to Sam to see him gazing intensely down at him with a new emotion in his eyes than the usual mistrust he was used to see in the taller male's eyes.

He came back into the room to be greeted by the sight of the two men sitting dejectedly on opposite sides of it.

"Here." He gave the package to Sam and sat in between the two hunters.

"Thank you." The other murmured grateful for more than the cold relief on his lip.

"Okay…Now start talking." He spoke firmly and saw the amused twitch of the lips Dean made at the way he was handling the situation and smiled back at him with mirth in his eyes.

Sam straightened and headed the command first, "I can pull demon out of their hosts and send them back to Hell, Dean, please understand I've been saving more people the past five months than we had in years."

"Is that what Ruby wants you to think?" Dean retorted without missing a beat.

"Okay, stop and get me up to speed, who is Ruby? And how exactly are you doing what you're doing?"

"A demon and his freakin' mind!" Dean shouted regaining his lost anger at just the mention of it.

That stopped him short. "A demon?! What, his mind? What does that mean?"

"She's been helping me, you were _gone_ Dean."

"I'm gone and suddenly it's a good reason to go and get cozy with demons?! And if it's so good why didn't you tell me? Why would an angel tell me to stop you, huh?"

Sam startled at that and looked up at his brother, his faith seemingly getting the upper hand. "An angel?" He whispered fearfully.

"Cas told me that if I don't stop you, he would."

"Castiel said that? Yeah, well, sorry but Cas is kind of an ass." That stopped both of the brothers short and they turned back to him, finally remembering he was there. "He is!" He defended, "Now tell me how are you doing that Sam?"

"I'm sorry Harry but it's kind of a family thing." He politely declined but Dean didn't seem to care much about the apparent family secret in the present circumstances.

"The demon that killed our mom.-

"The yellow-eyed one?"

"You told him?" Dean ignored the remark and kept on talking.

-Yeah, him, his name was Azazel by the way, well the night he killed her he gave Sam drops of his blood, Sam had been experiencing visions psychic-like visions since he turned twenty-two because of it and now apparently, he's using the powers the demon blood gives him to hunt and exorcise. But it's gonna get darker and darker and he doesn't get that. "

Harry observed the curled up form of the younger man carefully and found something like kinship in the tall man's situation because that, that, sounded eerily familiar. He understood better now though, "So that's what it is…" He trailed off, mostly talking to himself.

"That's what it's what?" Dean caught the whisper and asked sharply expecting an answer.

"The taint on Sam's aura, I didn't know what it was and I figured you knew. Besides it wasn't really my business." Both of the brothers gazed at him guardedly and Dean approached him.

"How can you know something like that?" He winced at the suspicion he could hear in the sudden hollow of Dean's deep voice.

While Sam questioned, "What do you mean, "taint"?"

He should have kept his mouth shut.

He began to fidget at having the attention placed on him like that but figured it was his turn to share. He just hoped he wasn't going to be rejected by Dean after that or even worst, killed by him or his brother.

"Okay, Dean, sit down. And don't interrupt me until I'm finished please." He ordered wearily and when he saw he was obeyed, he pulled himself up on the bed, pulling his knees close and wrapping his arms around them, expecting the worst but nonetheless breathed in and out and launched himself in his story.

He talked of his parent's deaths and the prophecy, his magic and his world full of creatures and enemies shadowed everywhere, of his friends and the deaths of some of them not by his hands but it might as well have been, the war and hissing the name Voldemort between two hateful gasps, he glossed over the Dursleys because he wasn't ready to tell anyone that, he didn't know if he were ever going to be and didn't talk about his death for the sake of the web of lies Dean was weaving about his time in Hell.

He talked and talked until his throat was raw and his voice a painful dry whisper.

After he lapsed into silence shuddering and world weary and so goddamn tired; he didn't know if their rejection would make a difference right now. He was all broken inside warped in sharp edges that didn't hold him together, leaking his emotions all over the place. He didn't want to look up at them and see his own loathing reflected in the two pair of eyes that burned his form with their intensity.

He felt the bed dipping and thick fingers lifted his chin, guarded but still warm and sympathetic eyes full of their own human flaws stared back at him.

He looked back and nodded softly to show he understood why the older man couldn't put his feelings into words, he nervously turned his gaze on Sam who looked at him and Dean with an unreadable face even as he could see pity and understanding battling the expected but none the less hurtful fear and wariness.

They hadn't rejected him.

They still had a long way to go. But for now;

It was enough.

The phone rang.

…

The old man named Travis was everything he thought a hunter would be at that age from what he had seen of Bobby and the little he had learned from the brothers on how their father used to be. He was all yellow teeth, old scars with deep-seated dark humor and overwhelming weariness in his clear eyes.

He hoped Dean wouldn't turn out like this but he wasn't big on hope.

"John would have been proud of you, sticking together like this."

Tension thickening visibly until it was almost stifling.

"Yeah, we're thick as thieves."

Not.

...

After he had killed the rougaru with a fire spell to save Dean _("Nice trick there squirt!") _and the cannibal situation was over and done with, he decided to talk to Sam because it was clear that every time Dean opened his mouth he only made it worse.

He would have found it funny if it wasn't so sad.

Sam had identified himself with the creature where there wasn't one single _real_ similarity. The younger hunter, seeing this normal everyday man all but burned on fire because of how he was born, had agonized and had hidden himself behind the shadows of his long hair on the ride back. And the taller male calling himself a "freak" during the case hadn't helped his mood at all but it _had_ straightened his resolve to hash it out with the shaggy haired man.

He had decided earlier to stop using his powers and said so to his brother and him, Dean had seemed relieved beyond compare with a little bit of hope thrown in there but him, he wasn't so sure. He would observe Sam and see if he were to get worst, if that happened he would do something about it, he didn't know what but if it could help the brothers in some way. He would.

He found the man sitting on the hood of the Impala wearing pitiful big eyes and large hunched shoulders like a second skin and staring at the sky like it hold all the answers. Considering what they knew now, maybe it did.

He approached and took a seat beside him cautiously but loudly so as not to startle the pensive man.

"Hey Sam… Listen I just wanted to say something-

"I don't really wanna talk right now Harry." The other interrupted him with a sullen pout on his tan features.

"I know, trust me I know but-

"No you don't." The other said harshly and Harry was getting seriously infuriated by the guy.

"Yes I do, I carried a soul piece of my parent's murderer for seventeen years, I know." He said all in a rush before the man could even think of cutting him off again. Ah, he had his attention now didn't he?

"Now, listen to me Sam, I had this dark and twisted soul inside of me since I was one year old and I could have gone evil with the life I had. You know, Voldemort and I weren't so different on papers but he made choices and I made others. And I never, ever killed anybody in my life and I hope I never have to, well anybody human, of course. That's what counts, Sam, choices. The monster we killed tonight, he didn't have any choices, _you_ do though: it's a totally different situation. And before you ask me how you know if you made the right ones, I can't tell you because I'm not in your place but Sam, you and your brother are some of the strongest people I've ever met, Merlin most people would be rocking back and forth in a mad house right about now if they were in your shoes. I'm sure you'll figure it out and if you feel like you can't, Dean will help you and I will too for that matter because it seems that I will be stuck with your tall whiny asses for a long time coming."

He turned his head to look at Sam who was looking at him with amused amazement in his big doe eyes, the man suddenly started laughing with an hysterical edge to it but laughing none the less.

"What?!" He asked indignantly.

"No, it's not really funny but the way you say "Merlin" all the time is actually hilarious."

The mood lost its heaviness and he bantered back blushing "Shut up, you gigantic prat." Sam's chuckles trailed off and he caught his eyes with a gratefulness that was staggering.

"Thank you."

They went to bed that night with lightened hearts.

He had done it.

-00-

Dean was searching desperately through the newspapers for a case cause, first, it seemed like an eternity since they had gone on a big bad monster with claws, the whole nine yards old school hunt and he had had enough of angels and demons to last him for a lifetime.

He just wanted a reprieve from the whole breaking of the seals business. Second, he wanted a distraction from the recent revelations, it felt like everyone were unraveling too fast all around him and he needed something familiar, something he could deal with, something where he could be in control for god's sake. And apart for going to the bar and getting laid right now, which would be difficult in the morning and he found he really had no patience for the whole process lately, what he needed was a nice hunt warped in a nice little bow with the drink of victory at the end being the metaphorical cherry on top.

He was still reeling from Harry's confession, he had of course remembered the mojo the man had performed in Hell but…Natural born magic user, that was unheard of, he noted to himself that he had to call Bobby about it soon enough. Not that he didn't believe Harry, it's just he wanted to know what the old man knew about the subject. When Harry had started talking and had revealed he possessed magic he had to control himself as to not interrupt the smaller hunter but hadn't been able to stop the sharp hiss of betrayal that had left him. But as the other had continued talkin' with that hollow painful note to his voice that he had never wanted to hear in the kid's raspy voice, the hurt had been replaced by horror at the life the runt had led only to end up in Hell…

It was cruel and a harsh reminder that he and his brother didn't have the monopole on suffering.

He also knew the squirt enough by now that he noticed there were some things he wasn't telling them. He clenched his jaw, if it was so awful he couldn't even tell them or him, after the tale of death and war he had recounted well let's just say he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

His determination to protect the green-eyed boy had reached a whole new high.

An article pulled him out of his thoughts.

Finally.

…

It must have been one of the weirdest hunt they ever went on and if that wasn't telling he didn't know what was.

At least they got a good laugh out of it.

Harry had laughed his quiet little laugh, Sam his heartfelt one: head thrown back and wide smile echoing in the Fest's courtyard.

He didn't know what had happened between them but he was glad for it, their behaviors had changed overnight. He could no longer see the mistrust that had filled his brother's eyes when he looked down at Harry and he could no longer see the bad-hidden yearning the little hunter used to have when gazing up at his brother.

He was pretty sure it was Harry who had made the first step after the rougaru hunt though, his brother from "before Hell" would have been the one to do it but he wasn't sure of _this_ version of Sammy.

He didn't know what Harry had said; he just loved him all the more for it.

He put the Impala into gear and he could hear soft compulsive chuckles coming from the backseat over the music and feel the lingering amusement coming from his right. "Shut up." He muttered with a perfected tone of sullenness, he was rewarded by the renewed laughter filling up the car.

The little runts weren't going to let that costume bit go for a long time, he just knew it.

With the smooth wheel of his baby beneath his hands, the music blaring out of the speaker, the open road in front of him and the laughter in his hears; he felt damn good, the best he had been in a long long time, hell, years.

_(Didn't hurt that he got the girl at the end either.)_

…

The past month had been strangely calm.

Too calm if you asked him.

They had torched a ghost, practically done it with their eyes closed too. Harry had opened up more in the face of his brother's eagerness to learn, told them of friendly ghosts, magic schools, giant snakes and freakin' unicorns, man…

His lilting English accent a constant background noise that somehow seemed to have a soothing effect on his usually frayed nerves.

His brother was still agitated most of the time but he seemed to try and keep himself in check, good.

They had been wandering around aimlessly along the dirtied roads of the good ol' U.S, a sightseeing tour of sorts for the British boy riding the backseat, a nice break from their hectic lives that the three of them had enjoyed immensely.

They had needed and deserved it.

Showing Harry the life they could, the life they knew, it wasn't much but it was theirs: made of pies, burgers and beers. His brother showing the wonders of the Internet while he sneaked some porn magazines under his pillow, teaching him how to shoot with the guns the younger man had brought with him _(and if he had felt a swell of parental pride when he had hit bull's eye, nobody had to know)_. Sam, the nerd, teaching him research and recounting some of the hunts they had been on, his big arms everywhere when he got excited with him throwing his two cents every few sentences just to see the smiles and hear the cheeky retorts he got from the emerald-eyed teen, him showing how his baby worked and how to take care of her…

(Trying to teach the ropes of flirting to the awkward boy was to this day, one of the best moments of his life).

In exchange they got stories of epic pranking, flying cars and flying brooms (he whimpered at those) and ridiculous valentine's poem…

It was good times and kind of what he imagined being happy felt like, he couldn't be quite sure.

It couldn't have last.

When they suddenly found themselves up to their elbows with men dying for no apparent reason. The first tricky hunt they had had in a month and wasn't _that_ a miracle.

He hated being right.

Like Harry had declared, they had been lucky it had actually lasted that long.

…

It was ghost sickness and he had it.

Of course he had, it was meant for jerks and dicks, he knew with some of the things he had done, well, maybe like more than half the things he had pulled, he was warranted for those particular titles but still…It sucked.

Okay scratch that, it didn't just suck it was positively awful and terrifying. Cranking the volume up in the Impala to drown out the sound of his rapidly beating heart, he looked in the rear view mirror and not for the first time in the last past hours he wondered if Harry had it too. The little hunter had his eyes wide open and an overwhelming fear shined out of them, so fucking green and locked on him, seeming to drink him in.

He couldn't look at them anymore and snapped back to the front.

His brother probably hadn't caught the look, too busy in his own worry, and continued to rattle on the symptoms of the ghost whammy with the other two passengers getting paler and paler by the second.

His heart was thumping so loud against his ribcage it was almost painful.

After Sam had finished his depressing speech and they had apparently a lead, the asshole that had found it funny to contaminate him by spraying him with his dead ghosty blood, he anxiously looked at Sam feeling his forehead crinkling with worry.

"So what I've got 48 hours before I go insane and my heart stops?"

Harry murmured from the back still fixing him with that heartbreaking look, "How much time does he really got?"

When Sam didn't answer him or the little guy but was instead staring at them one after the other, his eyes shifting somewhat guiltily he snapped "Sam." Through his clenched teeth.

"Errrrr…" Sam's mouth twisted in a wonky smile that didn't do anything to quench his fear at all, "More like 24 hours."

Harry closed his eyes in dread and let out a pitiful whimper that he had probably tried to keep for himself.

He had only one thing to say, "Awesome."

…

By the time Harry and Sam had figured it out his gut were churning constantly with a healthy mix of fear, anguish and strong alcohol straight from the flask.

They had gone to see Luther's brother, Harry refusing not to go and using what he called a dillusionment spell that had his heart palpitating and his temples sweating because he couldn't see, hear or feel the other male and that wasn't gonna fly at all right now.

Dean stumbled out next to the Impala with Sam explaining what has been happening to him, Harry reappearing him making him jump and reach for his heart with an indignant squawk because now was not the time for this kind of crap.

He was proud to say that he had managed to keep a certain humor in the situation, a mixture of dark humor and wonky jokes that he certainly didn't feel lately, he was just sure he had to keep them up even though he didn't really know why.

Until now.

He huffed and came to an angry stop next to the black car, "You know what screw this. What are we doing?!" He directed the question at Sam and Harry, his eyes unfocused on a space between the two.

Harry only looked at him confuse saying, "We're trying to save you Dean." And Sam announcing at the exact same moment, "We're hunting a ghost."

He focused on the second remark because the first had his palms sweating and his knees jerking, it reminded him too much of Hellhounds and mind-numbing pain.

"A ghost, exactly! Who does that?!" His legs buckling and bending, muscle-less and weak.

"Us." Harry and Sam fired back one fiercely, the other blandly.

"Us? Right. And that Sam, that his precisely why our lives suck. I mean, come on, we hunt monsters, what the hell?!" Dean exclaimed oblivious to his pacing or his hysterical arms gesture, his mind going hazy with fear. "I mean, normal people, they see a monster and they run. But not us, no, no, no, no…We-we search out things that want to kill us. Yeah? Huh? Or eat us! You know who does that? Crazy people! We…are insane!"

Sam and Harry opened their mouths but he quickly waved to interrupt them, he would have made to the other side of the car to shake them, make them understand, make Harry see the truth so that he could save himself before he was too deeply immersed in the bottomless hole of darkness they called their life even thought it would reap his heart and ignoring the fact that it was probably too late for that.

"And then there's the bad diner food and then the skeevy motel rooms and then that truck-stop waitress with the bizarre rash. I mean who wants this life? Sam? Harry? Huh? Seriously? Do the two of you actually like being in a car with me eight hours a day, every single day? I don't think so! I mean, I drive too fast and I listen to the same five albums over and over and over again, and I sing along. I'm annoying, I know that. And you Sam, you're gassy! You eat half a burrito and you get toxic! And you Harry what are you doing with us huh? You're a sweet young dude you could actually do anything you'd want but, noooo, do you actually want to die again?! You should save yourself man and get out of this life, my life, our lives before it's too late, I mean you know what?" He tossed the keys to Sam and pointed in the general direction he thought their chests were, he couldn't very well tell anymore. "You can forget it."

He didn't wait for their replies as he wobbled off into the dark.

…

His tie was choking him, every breath he took a gasp or a hiss and his legs were two limbs disconnected from the rest of his body. He was walking aimlessly, he was lost, his brain a jumble of thoughts.

The hallucinations had started and it was pretty much down hill from there.

He was pretty sure Harry had brought him back to the motel and that Bobby had arrived but he couldn't be sure.

The three of them had left him alone to deal with the ghost and he had almost begged for Harry to stay and keep talkin' because the only moments of lucidity he had were full of British accent but his pride got in the way, he really hated his pride right about now.

At first they were only clocks ticking, words appearing and pictures changing. He figured it was okay, he could deal with that. After all, he was in a way relieved with the knowledge that what awaited him after his heart stopped beating was a hell of a lot worse than what a ghost could ever come up with.

Once again, he had spoken too fast.

Ruby, Sam whose eyes were shining an evil yellow that he had hoped he wouldn't see again telling him that he couldn't wait for him to go back to hell. He broke just a little from that.

"Hello Dean."

God, please no. Not her. Not here. Just no. He repeated that like a mantra pressing his face in the leather of the Bible he was holding, maybe it would save him a second time he thought bitterly.

Lilith blond innocent looking child wrapper her tiny seemingly harmless arms around him, "I missed you so much." He stood up shuddering in disgust wanting to put as much space as possible between him and this nightmare. "Look who I brought with me." He tore his eyes away from the fascinating floor cursing himself all the while.

Harry.

Half naked Harry with holes on his shoulders remainders of the hooks, blood dripping from every pore, guts almost hanging out of his body, eyes blank and broken gazing at him unseeingly from an half-burned face. His horror-filled mind could see a define scar on his left hip, _D.W._

"You did this Dean." He heard Lilith say with half an ear still staring at what he had done to Harry, but no he hadn't done it, Cas… But he almost had, hadn't he? "You did this Dean and you liked it."

"You're not real." His voice wavered, his teeth rattling, his blood going to his head in a dizzying rush and his heart beating erratically.

"What's the matter Dean, don't you remember all the fun you had down there? You do remember. Four months is like forty years in Hell. Like doggie years. And you remember every second." She continued unmercifully pointing out the truth he had locked out in a very far and twisted dark corner of his mind; getting up with Harry's larger hand in her small one, his blood coating her little fingers and following his retreat, stalking her prey with the high-pitch voice and those eyes full of death.

He grasped uselessly at his chest as his heart filled with pain and the rhythm of his beats doubled, a feat he didn't think possible. His knees buckled and he crashed to the floor.

The room getting unfocused in a tangle of colors and sounds, his heart shuddering in warning and his mind losing grip on consciousness.

"Dean." He heard the little girl say, "Dean, it's me, look at me, it's not real. Whatever you seeing it's not." He wanted to believe that voice if he didn't know it belonged to a demon.

"Dean!" Large thin calloused hands gripped his face and he recoiled but they were insistent, "It's Harry." He didn't want to open his eyes and see what he had made of Harry; the blood was on his hands.

"_Dean_." The voice said desperately, the English accent getting stronger in its intensity. His body, against his wishes responded to that plea and he slowly opened his eyelids.

Green welcomed him, all over again filling him with hope, understanding, so _human_ and _alive_.

Harry.

With no blood on his face, just the usual scars, his Harry from now, not in Hell.

He gripped the slightly crying man's dirty shirt. Feeling thin fingers going through his short hair and his head positioned on the younger one's lap. He breathed carefully, in and out, that's it. "I'm gonna die. I'm going back."

"No you won't, I won't let you." Was the tearful but nonetheless forceful answer to his anguish cries.

"Please, please don't leave, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Harry." He let out in a painful dry whisper.

"I won't." He heard the fierce promise, welcoming the unconsciousness he allowed the ghost of a relieved smile to settle.

…

When all was done and over with, Sam and Bobby having taken care of the ghost they all allowed themselves a cold beer on the side of the road, like he hadn't been drinking too much already.

Harry and Bobby were talking quietly on Bobby's car hood and he had to genuinely smile at that cause of course the old man would be taken by the boy's stray dog appearance and sometimes slightly lost look.

He turned to look at his brother who was frowning at nothing, _when was he not nowadays_, he had seen the look on his brother's face when he had woken up still awkwardly grasping Harry's shirt, knew that his brother's vision of him was changing crumbling down at his all too apparent weaknesses and building alcoholism.

But he couldn't keep up anymore; everything was catching up to him and he felt as if he was tearing up at the seems most of the time, he couldn't hide his weaknesses from Sammy anymore, the ones _he_ had known he had for the longest time.

He kinda hated his brother a bit too for putting him onto a pedestal that he couldn't possibly match up for, Harry could see his short-comings and accepted all of them, all of him, but it was clear Sam could not.

But when his brother asked what he had seen and a flash of yellow made his way into his little brother's hazel-brown orbs, he lied.

He still tried.

-00-

Of course they had found a case on Halloween.

He knew something bad was going to happen and not the usual stuff too; it was in the simple order of his life, just a logical observation.

Merlin, how he hated the 31st of October and it wasn't only because it was the anniversary of his parents death or the numerous events that had happened to him on this day, it was the sheer obliviousness of the normal people towards this particular night. Couldn't they feel the wrongness permeating the air, he glared at all the sinister decorations, the joyful costumes in the small town even the candies the brothers were eating unnerved him.

They had discovered the witch if she could even be called that, hex bags, he snorted, what a joke. But she could do some real damage like apparently raising bloody _Samhain_ and they needed to stop her quick; he wanted to be the one to do it.

The brothers had noticed his mood and treated carefully around him, good choice, he was strung up and two minutes away from hexing the next person who would just think about irritating him.

They were on their way back to the motel room and Dean and him had just one moment to feel the simmering power before they barged in stopping the barreling Sam from shooting at the new occupants of their bedroom.

He knew it, that couldn't mean anything good; his ire reached a higher level, magic pulsing around him in dangerous waves.

"It's Cas, it's the Angel." He heard Dean say to his brother but he was more focused on the unknown entity in the room that had his back to them, how arrogant.

Sam was suddenly an awkward bumbling teenager meeting his idol and he winced in preparation when he saw only apathy in Castiel's eyes. Dean had already subtly positioned himself in front of them apparently having the same apprehension as him.

"-the Boy with the demon blood-"

He flinched when he heard that and glared at the angel, sidling next to Sam to offer moral support on the obviously pained tall man.

He interrupted the obviously socially inept being before he said something seriously awful and he decided to challenge someone far more powerful than him, his magic jumped and sizzled beneath his fingertips all but waiting to be unleashed. "Who's your friend Castiel?" He asked sharply still glaring.

"Yeah how about you tell us who Chuckles is?" Dean added supporting him. Sam was still forlornly glaring at the floor apparently able to be lost in thoughts even in the presence of angels.

"The Rising of Samhain, have you stopped it? Have you located the witch?" Castiel questioned blatantly ignoring their demands. His eyes narrowed and darkened dangerously.

"Well, no…" Sam who had tuned back in the tense conversation helpfully supplied scuffing his big feet awkwardly.

"But we know who the witch is." He completed, hoping that it would be enough for them he wanted the inhuman beings gone now, away from Dean and Sam, Castiel's threat from a couple of months ago still branded in his memories.

The dark skinned man huffed in amusement at his statement and he decided that he wasn't going to like him then and there.

"Apparently the witch knows who you are too." Castiel said lowly offering a hex bag to Dean who he was staring at. He actually had been staring at Dean from the beginning of the encounter; he narrowed his green eyes in suspicion, something was up that they couldn't see. "I found this in the wall. If we hadn't found it, one, both or the three of you would be dead. Now, do you know where the witch is?"

They all shared uneasy glances at that; Castiel unfortunately caught the exchange and his eyes, two cold chips of ice burned brightly on them. "This is unfortunate. The rising of Samhain is one of the 66 seals."

Dean scowled, "So this is about your buddy Lucifer?"

"Lucifer is no friend of ours." The dark figure chose that moment to growl out, turning around his voice a deep rumble, and he really didn't like him especially when his eyes full of contempt swept on Sam and next lingering on him. "Enough of this." His hackles rose quickly at the haughtiness and judgment he saw in those dark brown orbs, amusement was the response he got and his hand was slowly itching for his wand.

The man approached them slowly and unexpectedly lightly for such an imposing man, stopping next to Castiel and all but glowing in angelic possession.

"This is Uriel, he is what you call a… specialist." He didn't like where this was going at all, a sense of foreboding settled with Castiel's tone of voice.

"What kind of specialist?" He whispered lowly with an ice-cold voice that startled the brothers into staring at him for a moment, he shook his head feeling the question in their gazes but still looking intensely in the black eyes that regarded him with sick pleasure.

Uriel's smile was sharp and full of glinting white teeth, "We're going to destroy the town." He declared with badly contained sadistic glee.

Harry recoiled in horror but grim acceptance quickly replaced it.

The room was filling with shouts and he had had enough of this self-righteous bastard, he hadn't realized it but in his rage he had conjured the Gryffindor sword. He was quite surprised, he didn't know he still could but the comforting metal in his hand was enough to give him an excuse to push the new angel down a few peg and he wasn't about to let a town full of innocent people be destroyed.

He launched past the brothers and Catiel, gripping the taller man by the collar and pinning him into the wall pushing his sword at his neck, nicking the skin, a bit of blood penetrating the oddly luminous blade. "Nobody's going to destroy this town are we clear?"

"You sure you want to do that with me, little abomination." The other answered radiating dark amusement; he seemed to itch for a fight as much as him.

"Harry." He heard Dean call fearfully but he wouldn't back down even thought it was idiotic, he just wouldn't, he was thrumming with adrenaline.

"Trust me I want to. You pathetic excuse for an _Angel_." The taller of the two bristled at the insult and the amusement finally disappeared to be replaced by heavenly fury.

Castiel must have sensed the change and stopped the altercation before it got out of hand with a sharp "Enough."

"I suggest you hurry and find this witch." The blue-eyed angel ordered lastly and somewhat meaningfully.

Defiant green eyes stared up at enraged dark ones until they flew away.

As soon as they were gone, Dean rounded on him as the adrenaline left him and he slumped on the bed behind him. "What the hell was that? You can't pull shit like that with _angels_ Harry!"

"I know, he just…"

"Yes I hate him too, the winged son of a bitch but it's no reason to get yourself _blasted out of existence _by the asshole." He chuckled at the insults but stopped when he saw the deadly serious expression on the dirty blond man's face.

Still, Dean seemed to be in the same opinion as him, that they were more and more sure that angels really weren't much better than demons.

"Okay, okay, I'll try to keep my temper at bay." He offered petulantly.

"Good." Dean nodded satisfied with the retort, lips twitching despite his efforts at his childish tone.

"What was that sword anyway?" Sam asked suddenly.

"Long story, I'll explain later." He quickly responded at the demanding and curious brother.

"Right." Dean drawled out. "You will, but no time to stall, let's go."

…

They had failed, the seal had broken, Sam had had his faith and hope ripped away and had used his powers.

Dean had visibly flinched and looked away at the sight as Sammy had licked and tasted some of the blood on the corner of his mouth.

He didn't understand, he had paid attention and the tainted aura hadn't grown since the rougaru hunt, it had even receded a bit. He was starting to think that maybe it wasn't the actual use of the powers but something else that had an impact on it.

He however kept all that to himself, he wasn't sure and he didn't want to alert Dean or worry Sam for nothing. They already had enough on their plates.

The only good thing out of this all mess was that the sword was forgotten, it's not that he didn't want to explain to the brothers, just that he didn't want to remember all the moments he had needed it.

…

The morning was full of sunshine and Dean and him were sitting on a bench watching kids playing on the playground in comfortable silence, both comforted by the sight of all the lives they had saved.

Even thought they hadn't managed to stop Samhain from rising, well, it really didn't feel like a defeat at all.

A shift in the air clued them in seconds before a familiar trench coat joined them.

…

Maybe Castiel wasn't so bad after all; he was for now the only angel who deserved the title.

…

They were in crazy town and amazingly didn't fit in.

Dean's eagerness to hunt the peeking tom ghost and the talking alcoholic teddy bear were nice distractions from the tense silences that had filled the car since Halloween. Sam was giving them the silent treatment, Dean was quick to anger and drinking more than usual, _he_ was tired and irritable and both of their nightmares situations weren't improving.

The little brother was even more tense and irritable than normal, something had happened, something more than just what they had seen, he was sure of it.

…

Sam was getting suspicious of Dean's lies, he had already stated that he wasn't to be taken for a fool during the case, that he saw Dean's unrest and his bottle of alcohol always within reaching distance. Harry was only glad that he had gone unnoticed from the younger man perceptiveness; he had seen the jade eyes full of worry Dean shot him but ignored them.

Dean had too much to deal with for him to add on and his constant fear of being a burden kept him from the conversation and counsels he knew he desperately needed.

But when Sam was out getting some food, he decided against his better judgment to talk to Dean. "Dean." He called nervously, fidgeting and playing with the hem of his shirt.

"Yeah? What is it Harry?" He looked up to see the older male sitting opposite him on the bed; he must have sensed the impending serious conversation and had turned the T.V. off.

"It's just, maybe you should talk to Sam about Hell maybe it would help you, I know it won't do anything for your nightmares, I know but…"

"He wouldn't understand, you know that Harry, besides I thought you of all people should know how hard it is to talk about it." Dean looked pointedly at him at that, pointing out his own lack of communication about his time downstairs.

"I know, I know, I just want you both to be okay." He murmured pitifully, his tiredness getting to him.

"We'll be fine Harry, don't worry about it." He snorted bitterly at that because how could he not?

…

They had solved the case, a _wishing well_, really? He figured he should stop being surprised by the sort of things they encountered. Sam had made an unhealthy declaration of bloody vengeance during the hunt that didn't sit well with him; that road would only end in death and disaster.

Two things he certainly didn't _wish_ on the two brothers.

They were packing their stuff to get out of dodge like always, on to another no name town when Dean broke the silence, his voice like a slap in the once again tense silence filled with unasked questions and dodged conversations, "I do remember everything that happened to me in the pit."

That had frizzed him into a startled stop of his movements, when he had said he should talk to his brother about Hell he meant _without him in hearing distance_. Dean looked at him for a long drawn out glance that he should decipher but couldn't, when he snapped his intense gaze back to his brother.

"So talk to me about it." Sam said nodding resolutely; he clearly had no idea what they were talking about.

"No." Was the answer he had expected that seemed to throw Sam for a loop who looked on at his torn brother with confusion. "I won't lie anymore. But I'm not gonna _talk_ about it."

"Dean, you can't just shoulder this thing alone, you gotta let me help." Said an exasperated Sam and Harry really wanted to punch some reality into the tall man.

Dean was apparently thinking along the same line, his shoulders dropping with a defeated air around him. "How? You really think a little hug to hugs, some sharing and caring is gonna change anything, huh? That it'll somehow _heal_ me? I'm not talking about a bad day here." There Harry snorted bitterly, horrified to feel wetness rolling down his cheeks, he was now seated shoulders hunched, gazing unseeingly down at the floor, feeling the walls he had built around his memories of Hell slowly crumbling down at every new words out of Dean's mouth. He didn't see the confused hazel-brown eyes or the deeply worried green ones observing him for a moment.

"I know that." Sam responded, defiant at the worst moment possible.

"The things that I saw, they aren't words." _Red, blood, black, darkness, cold, hot, whips clacking against his skin, hooks digging into his shoulders, knives splitting his wrists, taunts, blood-curling screams, why, why, why, _"There is no forgetting, there is no making it better because it is right here. Forever. You wouldn't understand. And I could never make you understand. So I am sorry…" _why am I here, what did I do, am I still me or just flesh hanging from a ceiling, magic reaped away from him to be put again in painful back and forth, eyes ripped out of their sockets, limbs tore from his body, only to be put back together the next day to do it all over again, but why, why, why._

"_Harry." Alastair's voice drawling out his name like it was a treat, disgust making him shudder away. His back collided with a strong chest and he tried to claw his way out of the strong grip._

"_Harry, listen, you're not there anymore." He couldn't believe that deep voice, maybe he really was back and everything was just an elaborated dream like a part of him had always believed. But the mark on his shoulder burned, burned, burned._

"Harry." A deep voice, gun oil, Impala's leather, whiskey…Dean. No he was out, had been out for a long time now, he was safe, Dean meant safe.

"That's it, listen to my voice, you're not there, you're safe, I'm sorry Harry, I'm sorry, come back to me, come on, snap out of it, please."

He came back to himself curled in Dean's lap, back to chest. He blushed at his own weakness and looked up into the accusing brown eyes of Sam that was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. He untangled himself slowly from Dean's warm body, feeling the loss of heat keenly.

"You were there too." Sam stated.

"Yes." He croaked.

"You don't have to do this Harry." Dean stood and came to his aid placing a strong warm hand on his shoulder.

"What's going on?" Sam demanded impatiently like a dog with a bone faced with his lack of knowledge.

"Dean didn't save me from a ghost, we met in Hell." He whispered.

"You…What? How old are you?" Sam asked with a fearful voice and Dean stared at him expectant too, he remembered that the older hunter still didn't know about the duration of his stay.

"I was eighteen when I died." He heard the gasps but continued strangely detached from what he was going to say. "But I am 28 years old."

"Shit." Dean hissed out with wide horrified eyes full of realization and grim understanding. His jade orbs darting all over his face like he might suddenly disappear.

"God."

"Yeah, a demon came to me in the middle of the war when I was seventeen and desperate for all of it to _just stop_, he gave me the power and means to kill Voldemort. And I did. As soon as I accomplished the task I was set to do, the Hellhounds came." He finished trailing off and staring into the distance. "Dean is right you know, you cannot demand answers or think you can help because you simply can't Sam, don't kill yourself over it. It just is."

Sam nodded somewhat shameful and apologetic.

Dean was still staring at him and he didn't have time before the taller hunter gripped him in a strong smothering needy hug made of longing and comfort like he thought that he could squeeze all those years in the pit out of him.

…

They were now back on the road.

The air had been cleared, not all of it but bit-by-bit they would make it through.

Sam was less twitchy, more relaxed, Dean was driving humming and at ease, him, well him he was looking at the scenery passing by and figured he hadn't been feeling this good in a long time, Merlin, probably ever.

He was sure, with the three of them together like this, they were like a big magnet for trouble and an explosive mix that was an aphrodisiac for the supernatural but they were, at least for now, okay. And that was enough.

He was under no illusions that it wouldn't get worse.

Because it was.

Very soon.


	2. Chapter 2: I Wish I Was Comfortably Numb

**Auther's note: I'm sorry for the long time coming update but i had a massive author's block on the siren episode so hopefully you'll like my take on it. I also tried myself at Sam's point of view for this chapter and i'm not sure if i did good so all Sammaniac out there, tell me what you think.  
**

**Warnings: Changed the rating to mature just to be sure. Typical canon violence, slight Anna bashing, language (i guess), mentions of sex...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own neither Harry Potter nor Supernatural.**

**Episodes: From episode 9 "I Know What You Did Last Summer" to episode 15, "Death Takes A Holiday".  
**

**Oh and Happy New Year! :)**

* * *

_ I Wish I Was Comfortably Numb._

They were trying to teach the fine art of hustling to their new addition in another no name bar, in another no name town; he couldn't be bothered to learn where they were anymore, they would be gone as quickly as they had come, besides they kinda blurred together in a long string of blond waitresses, curling smoke and burning whiskey after some time. The kid got the hang of it quite quickly, with him as his teacher, if he might say so himself.

Rich stupid kids made their fortune.

All was going well, they had just finished a salt-and-burn and the tense atmosphere that had surrounded them since the ghost sickness and Samhain had somewhat disappeared. Not completely, of course, because well, _Winchesters_ here and his confession about Hell had been full of holes and half-truths and his too smart of a brother had rapidly figured _that_ out.

There was still a lingering guilt about having put Harry through another panic attack and he was beginning to think the squirt had fuckin' PTSD (_God, ten years…_) but it had been necessary, his brother and Bobby would have found out about their unusual meeting sooner or later and he had been so tired of lying to his brother all the time, he had just cracked under his accusing, knowing hazel orbs.

Even if he knew the Sasquatch hadn't really returned the courtesy.

He was feeling content watching his brother and Harry who was starting to feel a bit too much like family, _who was he trying to kid there exactly_, laughing over their winnings and pretending to be drunk, just as this thought passed through his head, his brother's gaze snapped to lock with someone at the counter.

He followed it curiously to…

…_Ruby_'s dark eyes, she was nonchalantly leaning on the bar, her eyes lazily and greedily taking in his brother's approaching form.

The hand around his drink tightened, his knuckles turning white he could feel the glass cracking with a certain feeling of satisfaction, for a second he imagined throwing it in her stupid face.

He didn't want that bitch anywhere near Harry.

He searched for him frantically around the pool tables to see that it was too late and the little wizard was already obediently following after Sam.

Damn it.

Swallowing his liquor, the liquid like a balm that tempered the rage he could feel simmering beneath his fisted hands, closing his eyes against the reality that for all his brother's smartness he could really be a freakin' moron sometimes.

Opening his eyes, Dean practically ran to Sam and Harry, positioning himself just behind his brother's giant back so that he wouldn't do something stupid in public. And seeing the demon's pitch black curious calculated eyes on the green eyed man, he quickly put a hand on his shoulder and violently pushed the smaller male protectively behind his leathered clad shoulders, hiding him from view and completely ignoring the surprised shout and annoyed look it got him.

"You have some nerve showing up anywhere near me." Dean hissed between painfully clenched teeth.

Ruby nonchalantly rolled her eyes, "I just have some info then I'm gone."

"Great demon-whispers, that's reliable."

His brother swung back to glance at him over the line of his shoulders with blossoming annoyance in his narrowed eyes and he darkly wondered which would win if they kept at it long enough to explode in the expected fight they would no doubt have at some point or another.

Sam broke eye-contact and looked past his left shoulder and winced then deflated but quickly took back control over himself, he would have missed it if he hadn't been glaring at his brother with laser-like focus. He turned and had to look down to see Harry like he had rarely seen him before, narrowed glare, tense shoulders and clenched fists, emeralds dark with anger locked on the dark haired female petite form.

He could smell ozone crackling in the gradually pressured air, and yeah okay, Ruby certainly could do that to people but Harry had just met her, what had he seen to make him react so strongly? That was just another reason, another justification (wasn't it sad that he had to have those to prove his brother wrong about a _demon_), and another proof that they should just kill her, not _listen_ to her.

He reluctantly put a hand on the smaller man's shoulders because he could see lights flickering and they didn't need a magic show but how he wished he could let Harry do his jumbo thing and obliterate her right then and there.

Harry minutely calmed down at his touch.

Leveling a smug look to his brother, for it to be swipe off his face when he saw that the taller man was already back and focused on Leatherface.

"Girl named Anna Milton escaped from a locked ward yesterday. The demons seem pretty keen on finding her. Apparently some real heavy-hitters turned out for the Easter egg hunt." Ruby's dark eyes flickered over Harry warily and he hadn't had the time to cherish it and tap the smaller hunter on the shoulder as thank-you for that price before she was sweeping them in dark humor over him, he bristled.

"Why? Who is she?" Sam asked easily slipping into concerned sympathy, brain cells visibly cocking into gear despite the alcohol they had drunk.

"No idea." Ruby said boring her eyes back and up into his brother's face, "But I'm thinking that she's important, cause' the order is to capture her alive. I just figured that whatever her deal is, you might want to find this girl before the demons do."

Harry suddenly waved attention to himself with incredulous disbelief painted on his features, "Why should we listen to you? For all we know it's a trap and that Anna chick don't even exist. I mean I don't know maybe I'm lost here but last time I checked you were a _demon_, right?" Mocking sneer twisting his mouth into an ugly smear of red.

Pride and satisfaction filled him and he turned an expectant look towards the other two.

Ruby's eyes narrowed into two slits glinting like two black pearls in the dim lights of the bar, "I'm just delivering the news. And Dean, you're a damn hypocrite throwing stones at your brother about me when you're all goody-goody with a wizard. A wizard, I might add, that has no place here. He's an abomination that shouldn't have left Hell, ever." Harry lunged for her but he blocked him, catching his two thin arms and backing him up against his chest, the smaller male was hissing and spitting in rage in his hold.

He wasn't faring much better, turning a dark glare on her that he had only ever used on old Yellow-Eyes before.

She backed up in front of the two pair of fierce green eyes light up in fire and glowing in promised pain, "You can do whatever you want with it. As far as I'm concerned, I've done my bit."

With a flourish she jumped off her tool going for the exit when his brother that had been a six foot tall ball of awkwardness, shuffling and biting his lip nervously, backed up between the two sides, made himself known again by grabbing her arm, his big hand swallowing half of it. Dean and the still bound Harry observed as Ruby stopped immediately and submissively in the strong grip.

"Wait, wait." Sam said rapidly, blocking her, "The hospital she escaped from- it got a name?"

…

"So Anna Milton is definitely real." Sam stated clicking off his phone, running his eyes on him from beneath his fringe in a way that had never been subtle.

A snort was heard from the backseat but his little brother ignored it, Harry had been in a foul mood and had refused to talk since they had decided, well more like Sam had, to go and check Ruby's lead.

Not that he was much better.

He clenched his fingers in the steering wheel, drilling his hands in for a semblance of control, "Doesn't mean the case is real. The hospital is a three days drive from here."

"We've driven further for less." Sam pointed out ever so helpful but he decided his brother was being too damn logical for Dean's temper right now.

"I don't care." He snapped, angrily pushing the Impala faster, "This sucks, the case, Ruby, the drive, everything just plain sucks."

Sam hesitated but seeming to think that _no_, he couldn't find the answers to all of his questions on the street lights flickering along Dean's profile, turned in the backseat to face the wrath of the silently seething magic user.

"Harry?" Sam asked softly and somewhat meekly, more than one question loaded into the one-worded interrogation.

"What Sam?" Harry barked harshly.

"Don't, just don't, what's going on?" Don't let it be said that his brother is quelled by a glare when he wants to _talk_. Then again, he did live in close quarters with Dean for the majority of his life…

"What do you think?"

"Don't you wanna see what that girl's deal is? Save her?" The annoyed gleam in the other's green eyes doubled at the supposition his brother was making, even _Dean_ knew it wasn't the way to go about it.

"That's not it Sam. Of course I want to see what the demons want with her, precisely because they're _demons, Sammy_." Harry snorted again using the nickname patronizingly. "Don't you get it? Dean and I, we've been to _Hell, _you listening and bloody _trusting_ every word that comes out of that, that, woman's mouth. It's just throwing it back in our faces and if _I_ feel betrayed, imagine what your brother must feel. He went _there_ for you Sam just…I…" Harry trailed off helplessly; slumping drained and defeated after his rant, his eyes going to the window in clear dismissal.

He could see his brother frozen in the same position as color drained from his face while he fixed Harry intensely, understanding _finally_ downing on him.

However he couldn't be bothered by Sam right now, he was busy looking in the rear-view mirror at the pensive figure, he was so damn thankful he thought he could burst with it that Harry had just said all he had wanted to shout in his brother's stupid stubborn face for weeks but hadn't had the force to nor the words to express it.

His gaze on the green-eyed man was so full of emotions, thoughts and images, possibilities, futures and memories mixing in his own dazed orbs it was staggering and left him winded and slightly out of breath.

They lapsed and remained in thoughtful silence for the rest of the drive.

…

Well, Anna Milton was turning out to be more and more interesting.

Dean didn't like it.

In his experience being interesting meant either you were the bad guy or it got you killed. He didn't know which he would prefer Anna to be.

The Milton girl who had described _Revelations _with more then scary accuracy had been attacked by demons in a secured mental hospital, and her parents were dead, throats slit, left pooling in their dried blood on the carpeted floor of their living room, sulfur coating the place.

Looking up, with Harry on his right and Sam on his left, at the colorful glass window of the Milton's church in apprehension, a shiver ran down his spine. He had a hard time scoffing at religion ever since angels had shown up into their life.

This was shaping up to be a very long day.

"So, she's in there?" He asked tiredly, resigned that he would have to go in whether he wanted to or not, _story of his life_ he thought dryly.

"This is what she drew." Sam held up the sketch, matching it with the building, "Ready?"

This time Harry answered with a hint of impatience, the kid was clearly done talking wanting the honestly fishy case to be over and done with, "No. Let's go."

He couldn't agree more.

Interesting was always bad.

…

"Dean? The Dean?" Anna's wide innocent eyes wavered over his face, her hair a bright halo of crimson framing her fearful features, the sunlight reflecting on the tainted glass bathing all of them in an ethereal mix of violet and orange.

Dean gave her his best cocky, confident crooked smile, eyes alight with flirtation, "That's me, I guess. The Dean." He could see Sam giving him an annoyed glance at his left and Harry watching him amused from his right, the boy still tense, probably at the fact that she knew his name. It was good someone kept a leveled head because, well, she was pretty.

She suddenly frowned and focused on Harry, he tensed in response cause' doe-eyes and pretty hair aside, she was still an unknown, an _interesting_ unknown at that. "And you're Harry Potter aren't you?" She asked in the same awed tone of voice she had been using.

"Hum, yes…" Harry mumbled uncertainly.

She brightened at both of their confirmations.

"It's you, it's really you. Oh my God, the angels talk about you. You were in Hell but Castiel pulled you out, and some of them think you can help save us." Her bright excited eyes moved to his brother and for just a moment her smile cracked and threatened to almost slide right off her face. "And some of them don't like you at all. They talk about you all the time lately. I feel like I know you."

The three of them stayed stunned in front of her knowing gaze but they quickly recovered.

"So you talk to angels?" The shortest of their group asked hesitantly.

"Oh no. No, no way. They probably don't even know I exist. I just kind of… overhear them." She stuttered back at him awkwardly and he saw Harry giving her a reassuring smile at her obvious distress, it seemed to do its work as she slightly blushed giving him a thankful hesitant smile.

Nice job kid, he thought smirking.

"So, they lock you up with a case of the crazies when really you were… Tuning in to angel radio?" Dean asked.

"Yes. Thank you." Anna's fear disappeared instantly to be replaced by a confident nod soaking up the fact that they believed her.

Both Harry and him smiled genuinely at her and the one Anna returned was as equally as painfully honest.

"Well at least now we know why the demons want you so bad, they get a hold of you and they can hear everything the other side's cooking. You're 1-900-angel." Dean said with a quirk of his lips.

Sam stepped in to get them back on topic; he had always known his little brother was a downer in any possible circumstances. "When did it start Anna?"

"18th of September." She answered helpfully, nodding decisively.

He choked on air at that and he could hear similar reactions on both of his sides cause' that, that, was the date they got out of Hell, he knew it, it was freakin' branded in his memory for god's sakes.

"Dean Winchester and Harry Potter are saved, that was the first thing I heard, clear as a bell."

"Okay, okay. We need to get you out of here-"

His brother didn't have the time to finish his plan out loud when the church's door swung open revealing a frantic Ruby striding quickly and skidding to a stop in front of them, her hands curled nervously against her thighs. "Quick! Come on we need to go!"

"Her face." Cried out a disgusted looking Anna who was putting her hand in front of her mouth, her eyes wide and horrified and he glanced at her feeling smugly vindicated even as Sam struggled his way through a good enough explanation and as Harry tried and failed to smother his laughter.

"It's quite horrible isn't it?" Dean heard the English accent say between two hiccups and he gave a surprised chocked off laugh as Anna giggled watching them.

Ruby gave them a dark annoyed glare but there didn't seem to be the usual heat in it when they kept bouncing back an forth between the door and Anna, "We don't have time for this. A demon's coming." She hissed and suddenly she froze, her body sizing up, her eyes widened in fear and it was probably the first true emotion he had seen from the hell-bitch.

"Too late." She whispered breathlessly and they all followed her vision to the tears of blood that were crawling down the Virgin Mary's marble face, "He's here."

Sam determinedly pulled a flask of holy water out of his pocket when Ruby stopped him, "No Sam, you got to pull him right away."

"No, Sam don't listen to her, whatever she's making you do, please don't do it." Harry cried out putting himself in front of his brother, big green eyes wide and pleading clutching Sam's jacket sleeves.

"Wha-" Dean said confused and not liking where this was going, he turned to Ruby, "Wait. Hold on a sec'." He bit out.

"Now is not the time to bellyache about Sam going dark side, he does his thing or we die." She snarled, lips curled up and teeth bared.

No, no, no.

He looked at his brother who hadn't catch a word they had said his face still boring down into two emerald gems, he intimately knew their power and he fucking wished they had the same effect on Sammy.

A crack resonated thought the church.

Everything was still, nobody moved or even breathed and Dean was staring at the door with a blossoming sickening fear churning in his gut cause' they were defenseless, there was nothing they could do at that point but wait for the inevitable.

He backed off from the entrance putting himself in front of Anna; Sam bringing Harry behind his broad form that swallowed the lithe male completely and he dearly hoped it would be enough even though he knew it wouldn't.

"Hello boys." The door ripped itself and was thrown across the room revealing the grey hair and impeccable suit of the demon's possessed body.

Harry and him seemed to know who it was just from the slow crooning and drawling quality of his voice.

"Alastair."

They both whispered breathless. He gripped Harry's arm painfully but Dean didn't care one bit at the moment, bringing him to his side in an instant and making sure he was there.

Alastair smiled charmingly at them and threw Sam across the room in one casual careless wave of his hand.

One chocked off painful cry and then, ringing silence.

Dean found himself rooted to the spot dumbstruck in fear as the man approached them in smooth gliding steps and Harry wasn't in anyway better off from the pained ragged breaths racking his form he could feel from his hand on the other's arm.

"Don't you recognize me Dean? Harry? I thought _you,_ my precious boy, of all people would. After all, we did spend an awful lot of time together didn't we?" The man shot pupil-less white eyes at them and smiled mockingly, smoothing down his suit. "Oh I forgot… I'm wearing a pediatrician."

Alastair's fist was like a moving car against his face and he crumbled to the ground under its unnatural force, his vision getting hazy as he saw Alastair turning to the shaking green-eyed man, he tried to push himself off the polished wooden floor when Alastair came to a stop right in front of Harry, not attacking him but putting a deceptively soothing hand on his pale cheek.

It was worse.

Bony fingers wrapped themselves around the thin throat, the other going from his cheek to his arm in a shallow form of a caress, gripping the fragile limb like he would rip the skin right off the bone to reach the blood.

He had done that once.

_God, why couldn't he move?_

"Harry, I missed you." The man pressed his face closer and his features twisted into an expression of sick pleasure as Harry gurgled under the pressure, "We were so close in Hell." For a second Dean thought that Alastair would kiss him but Harry forcefully turned his head away in disgust, searching for help with frantic desperate eyes.

That was it.

Dean saw red, his rage fueling his movement, heaving himself upright through the pain coursing his body as his blood thrummed in adrenaline. He downed Ruby's knife in the demon's back as powerfully as he could, so deep some of the wooden handle disappeared then turning it viciously.

Lightning crackled dimly beneath the skin, muscles thinned and stretched. Harry wriggled himself free scrambling away and stumbling blindly into Dean, he put his free arm protectively around the squirt, tightening his hand in the back of his head, shielding Harry and his big emerald eyes from everyone and everything.

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that, son." Alastair chuckled turning around; he wasn't even that surprised that it hadn't worked.

Before he knew it, they were running away, a shell shocked Harry still in the crook of his arm and a barely conscious Sam all jumping out the only escape possible: the goddamn window.

Nice move Winchester.

-Not a redhead or a demon bitch in sight-

This day was turning out to be a real pain in the ass.

…

"Why do you trust her so much?"

He shouldn't have asked.

Holy crap, he was going to have nightmares forever, he was torn between disgust and morbid fascination, he didn't know what to think; his little brother and a demon even if the body she was possessing was empty and admittedly hot it was down right wrong, so, so _wrong_. He was glad Harry had been out of it for this particular heart to heart because he didn't want to scar the kid for life more than he already was.

Okay, maybe, maybe she wasn't so bad, she may have saved Sam and he was grateful, he was but from what he got of the story of what Sammy did last summer, during his time in the basement, she still used all of the manipulating tools on his brother, spreading her legs was just the icing on the cake.

And his innocent little brother just rolled with it.

God, this was so fucked up; how could it come to this?

He didn't have time to digest all the information, _over sharing much Sam_, when they were on the hunt for radio girl once again.

…

"Can I call my parents? They must be worried sick." Anna asked from her spot in the safe house, wringing her hands together nervously.

Oh, awkward.

They all watched each other uneasily, after a long silent argument Harry was appointed to the task. The smaller hunter groaned and grumbled but nevertheless went to sit down next to her. He observed the two as Harry turned his bambi-eyes to full force taking her small delicate hand in his thin calloused one. She looked at him warily and questioningly, "Anna, listen, about your parents… I'm sorry but we were too late."

"What are you saying?" She whispered meekly and fuck, he really hated this part of the job.

"The demons got to your house before we did, we're so sorry Anna and I wish I could say something different right now but-"

"No, no, God, they're dead, why is this happening to me?" She cried out, chocking tearfully, wrapping her arms against her stomach and bending, putting her head between her knees.

"I don't know Anna, I've asked myself that question a million times myself but it won't change anything. You got to live for them now Anna, let us protect you." He said fiercely, shushing her and putting a soothing hand on her back, "Besides, we know for a fact angels exist so chances are: Heaven is real, they must be in a better place right now."

Anna got back up at that looking at him trustingly and Harry flinched under the gaze, "You think?"

"I'm sure." Anna smiled weakly but she seemed to find what she wanted in the sparkling green of Harry's orbs and her wobbling smile widened significantly, gripping Harry in a hug that he saw made the man tense as he awkwardly pat her in the back. His lips twitched at the action and Harry seemed to feel it as he was suddenly on the receiving end of an annoyed glare, Dean just smiled brilliantly back at him.

He knew Harry had been a good choice to deliver the bad news he thought as his gaze softened from the hard edge they had gotten since his earlier conversation with Sam.

He looked over at his tall brother to see him staring at their embrace intensely, specifically Harry with an inscrutable look on his face.

He wasn't sure he liked it.

Anna's body suddenly clamped up and she tilted her head in a definite Cas-like move before she focused again, jumping up from the ratty couch her brown eyes zeroing on Dean, "They're coming."

Everybody tensed, muscles rippling, hands coiling around weapons and they put themselves in position as Harry ushered her in the back room urgently.

"Wait. Who are they?"

One second later, Dean had his answer.

The house's door blasted apart, and was it him or there was a recurring theme here, but this time it was angels appearing in all their glory facing three guns and Ruby's fear.

Relief filled him and he lowered his gun down but keeping it in his grip cause angels hadn't made that good of an impression on him so far and he could see the other two still pointing theirs, obviously thinking along the same line.

They could still try and hope though, "Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day."

But Castiel's blue eyes were wide taking in their protective stance, bloody clothes and Ruby's presence.

He knew why he wasn't a fan of hope.

The angels hadn't expected them to be here and he suddenly knew with frightening clarity that things were about to get much worst real fast and he pointed the nuzzle of his useless shotgun at their suited torsos.

"I can see that." Uriel, the bastard, spoke in his cold controlled voice staring disdainfully at Ruby's shivering body. "Want to explain why you have that stain in the room?"

"We're here for Anna." Cas said staring at him with his usual intensity and he had a feeling he was loosing half the things the angel was trying to say to him.

"Here for her?" Harry replied incredulously, "You're not here to help her." He stated more than asked, his lips twisting into a sarcastic bitter smile.

"Stop talking." Came the growled order as Uriel fixed Harry with the same kinda look he had given Ruby, he could see the green-eyed man visibly bristling at the order but he put a hand on the pale male's shoulder because he wasn't so sure Cas would stop his subordinate this time. Harry didn't say nor did anything but he could almost hear his teeth grinding at the effort.

The son of a bitch watched the small interaction between the two of them with sick ill-disguised amusement.

He felt his eyes widen when no protests came from the heavenly beings but a bleak humorless smile soon settled on his features in a reminder of Harry's in grim understanding, his grip on his weapon tightened and he placed a finger on the trigger even if he knew it wouldn't do a single thing to them.

Castiel's grave emotionless voice sipped through the silence, "Anna has to die."

Damn it.

It was official: he hated interesting people.

-00-

Harry closed his eyes tightly at the certainty in Cas' voice, an order then. He idly wondered if it was really God giving them because it didn't seem like what a so claimed merciful God would want. But what did he really know?

The terrifying realization was: he didn't know anything.

This day had been going from bad to worse since Ruby had come strolling into the bar and oh, now he understood the coiled up anger Dean had for her, she was despicable, not only because she was a demon but because he could feel the maliciousness practically oozing out of those too calculative dark brown eyes.

To make matters worst he could somehow see or feel, he didn't know how to describe it, her essence and it was it: the stain on Sam's aura had the same foul taste.

He hated her.

And things just came piling and piling as time got by and he couldn't help but blame Ruby even though it wasn't really her fault. Anna's folk's deaths, the fact that she could talk to angels and that she had been thrown in a shit storm of disproportional magnitude for no damn reason and then, _them_ walking into her life without so much as a by your leave. Even if they were going to help and protect her, he empathized.

He really did.

Since the beginning he had the feeling it wasn't going to end up well.

As such: _Alastair_'s dramatic appearance a couple of hours ago hadn't surprised him as much as it should have, the glowing wankers standing at there doorstep just proved him even more right if that was possible.

He opened his lids to be faced with Uriel's sick righteousness, side stepping Castiel with his big hands curling and uncurling in barely restrained power at his sides, "Don't worry, I'll kill her gently."

"You're some heartless sons of bitches, you now that." Dean said in a dark rumble with a disgusted twist of his lips, baring his teeth at Uriel making it clear what he thought of those supposed angels, raging and breathing through his nose.

"You can't." Sam exclaimed in indignation, his innocence and sense of right were somewhat refreshing to Harry, putting himself in the way of the prick like he could stop him by the sheer force of his will, and even Sam's bulk looked small in front of the angel's form, he could almost imagine invisible wings unfurling at the black skinned man's back. Harry felt himself move without thinking about it, sidling up close to the taller male, Dean hot on his heels automatically ready to protect his little brother. "Anna's innocent girl." Sam continued desperately.

Ruby was a mess next to them quivering and shifting in fear and he was guiltily glad that the angels had come just to see her in that state, her smug demeanor wiped off by the waves of white power filling the shackle room.

Harry tried to gauge Cas' reaction; he could see emotions shifting behind the blankness but soon, two emotionless arctic blue eyes shining in starlight stared back at them, "She's far from innocent." The angel interrupted ominously but despite his words and contrary to Uriel, he still hadn't move from the doorway, maybe it was because he could feel their indignation mixing with his magic but he didn't think so. He knew Cas could blast them apart anytime he wanted to with just a blink.

It was oddly comforting he hadn't yet resorted to that in front of the wall of stubbornness they presented.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam questioned faster than he could.

"Give us the girl." Uriel ordered with a feral grin and a sickly sweet tone.

The three of them exchanged glances and after their silent conversation, they were all fueled with adrenaline by the shear recklessness of what they were about to do.

"Sorry, can't do that, get yourself another one. Try J-Date." Dean shot back with a wide smile that was echoed on Sam and Harry's faces, it was everything but friendly.

Uriel didn't seem to want to reign in his power anymore; his eyes trained on them alight with heavenly wrath, "And who is going to stop us? You two or the little abomination."

He didn't have the time to react before he was thrown into the window across the room, Ruby following close behind. Uriel put his hand around his throat in a mockery of what Alastair did earlier and he fought to breathe, gasping and clawing at the seemingly iron fingers squeezing and crushing his windpipe at an alarming rate when Dean came and saved him and he was left on the floor breathing raggedly wondering if it was ever going to stop.

He could see Sam's unconscious body on the floor, Dean being plummeted on the ground, crumbling under the white fury of Uriel's fists and he tried to crawl to them, call some of his magic wandlessly and do something, anything, all seemed lost, then suddenly bright light blinded him and when he opened his eyes, they were gone.

"What the bloody hell was that?" He exclaimed unrestrained and breathless.

Dean heaved himself up the floor and pulled him up, looking him up and down, shortly followed by his brother who glared down at the two sets of hands-shaped bruises on Harry's throat, eyes dark in anger but he seemed to come back to himself quickly, his hazel eyes lingering intensely on him for a few seconds before he went to help his demon.

Dean looked at his brother's retreating back with calculative green eyes before shaking his head in dismissal and taking Harry in a short relieved embrace, "I have no idea."

…

They were all at Bobby's after Anna's banishing spell for a semblance of safety because where else?

"We're in trouble aren't we? Aren't you scared?" Ruby, Dean and him all watched each other and he rolled his eyes when the two looked pointedly at him, why did it have to be him that had to do the bravado speech he never had been good at it for Morgana's sakes.

He smiled at Anna with what Dean called his _good guy smile_ trying to make it as reassuring as he could even when he felt like it was more a grimace, "Nah, don't worry, all three together we've faced bigger and 'badder' than puny winged pricks." He declared with an exaggerated accented voice and a teasing smile that he stole from Dean trying to convince himself at the same time. Because truth was, he was kind of terrified, afraid that the angels would smite the brothers if they decided that Dean and Sam were more trouble than they were worth.

Which was a ridiculous thought to him, he had never regretted joining Dean and consequently Sam as well, they were definitely worth the troubles.

Dean laughed lowly behind him and Anna giggled flashing him white teeth, smoothing down her, until now, worry-furrowed brows.

Lying, he thought, was clearly worth it.

…

Anna Milton was an angel.

Really?

They were all in Bobby's office after the psychic episode had been concluded, he really liked Pamela, she reminded him of Sirius in a strange way with her wide smile and teasing remarks, plus he was curious about her powers.

Anyways… now they were three.

Apparently, two of them angels weren't enough.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not like the others." Anna declared seeing their defensive stances but it didn't really help him and watching Sam and Dean, it didn't do it for them either, there was a powerful unknown in Bobby's house and obviously none of them liked it.

"I don't find that very reassuring." Ruby said watching her warily.

"Neither do I." Pamela nodded in agreement, he felt bad they had dragged her into this.

Even if Anna was different as she proclaimed herself to be, he had still preferred the distressed innocent girl than the overconfident redhead that was pacing back and forth in front of their dumbstruck faces.

They were way in over their heads.

He suddenly remembered Cas's sentence from earlier uneasily; really, what had she done that they would want her dead. And he actually wondered where the male angel was, where she had sent him, he couldn't care less about Uriel but Castiel had grown on him since Samhain despite his sometimes-alarming lack of emotions or even this latest stunt.

"So Castiel, Uriel, they're the ones that came for me?" She asked in pretended obliviousness that he didn't really appreciate, she made his magic restless and uneasy and he had always listened to his magic, it was after all, the only thing that had never abandoned him.

"What? You know them?" Sam asked with a tint of mistrust, ah, he smiled up at Sam who returned it with a discreetly amused up-turn of his lips; he had to have sensed his reluctance to trust her then.

She nodded, "We were kinda in the same foxhole."

"Were they like your bosses or something?" Dean joined in.

"Try the other way around?" She smiled sheepishly and he didn't buy it at all. Plus the fact that she had the potential of being more powerful than Cas and Uriel who were already powerhouses in their own right didn't really help his unrest at all.

"Look at you." Said Dean appreciatively with a flirting smile, he knew he was being petty and he had no right being, he admitted, childishly jealous but he didn't like their interaction and the attention Dean was giving her, he didn't want him anywhere near the newly discovered angel.

"Where did you send Castiel?" He interrupted harshly and she startled, he knew they were all looking at him weirdly but he pointedly kept staring at her.

"Harry?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"What?" He snapped, he knew it was irrational but he was kind of at the end of his rope here and the magic sizzling under his skin didn't help his case.

"Why do you care?" Asked Dean curiously without the scorn or reprimand that he had expected and that was what made him talk.

"I'm sorry but I want to know, I don't want him dead or in trouble. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't care less about the other one, he could go rot in Hell for all I care and I don't like their stupid orders but Cas… I don't know, he grows on you okay…He isn't so bad." He whispered trying to justify his outburst.

Anna was looking at him with an unreadable gaze that had him shifting, "I send them back to heaven but they'll be back soon enough."

He let out a sigh of relief at her direct non-cryptic answer.

"Now they wanna kill you?" Pamela asked to get them back on track and Harry was glad he wasn't the center of attention anymore, squeezing the psychic's hand in thanks, she squeezed back and he smiled a little, glad that she wasn't upset he had asked about the angel that took her eyes.

Conclusion: Fallen angel.

Heaven and Hell on their trail…

…Just another simple day in their life.

…

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

"Your brother is a freak." Harry stated even as he cringed at the word, it was unfortunately the only expression he had in mind for the scary brain Sam seemed to possess, it reminded him of Hermione, he thought wistfully.

"I hear ya'." Dean replied amusedly as they watched Sammy describe his plan from their spot on the wall.

"Anna, can I ask you something?" Harry asked out of the blue getting shocked looks all around, he hadn't been really forthcoming with her since she had been angelized, "Why do they need Dean for? Why would they save him?"

Everybody stopped talking to stare at her curiously, Dean straightening from his slouch position.

"You don't want to know why they saved you too Harry?" Asked Sam softly.

"No, I know Castiel wasn't supposed to save me, I'm only out because your brother is a stubborn git." He stated smiling sincerely up at Dean, who just bumped his shoulder into his.

"Anytime squirt." He winked making light of the situation, as the older hunter was prone to do, "Anna?"

"I'm sorry, the angels aren't talking about it and it was after I fell." She answered apologetic.

Dean slumped back disappointed but perked up a second later, "Why would you fall? Why would you wanna be one of us?"

She looked intensely at him before glancing down, "You don't mean that." She whispered.

"I don't. A bunch of miserable bastards, I mean, eating crap, being confused, afraid-"

"Well, there's loyalty, forgiveness…love." She interrupted Dean, staring at all of them in turn meaningfully like they couldn't understand, didn't get all the wonderful things being human meant. Well, excuse them but when they had their lives, it was a bit hard to imagine that humanity was something great and to be admired. It didn't mean Harry didn't like being what he was, just that he had a difficult time believing they were _lucky._

"Pain." Thank you Dean.

"Chocolate cake." He snorted at that.

"Guilt." The older man said matter-of-factly.

"Sex." She said back smirking.

"Yeah, you got me there." Dean said after a moment of floundering, nodding in agreement.

"I mean it Dean, every emotions, even the bad ones, it's why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything." She said with tearful eyes but he didn't understand, he had watched Castiel every time he had shown up and the angel did have emotions, he was just really good at hiding them.

"Feelings are overrated if you ask me." Dean said looking upwards.

Sam laughed hollowly at that, "Of course you'd think so Dean, you run away from them."

"Beats being an angel." Anna cut them off before they could go down _that _particular road.

"How is that possible? You're powerful, perfect, you don't doubt neither yourself nor God or anything really." Sam asked incredulously, frustration clear in his voice and Harry understood where he was coming from because why, why when you're an angel, would you _want_ to be part of their miserable species.

"Perfect like a marble statue, cold, no choice, only obedience, Sam do you know how many angels have actually seen God?" She asked bordering on angry. "Four angels have seen his real face and I sure as hell am not one of them."

A stunned silence followed that statement before what she had said catch up to the green eyed magic user, "Cas isn't like that." He said sure of himself and wanting to contradict her.

"What?" She broke her staring contest with Dean to snap back to him.

"I said Castiel isn't like what you describe." He said enunciating every word like she was a toddler and there it was, irritation passed through her eyes for a second, breaking the oblivious fragile personality she had used until now.

"Yes he is." She snapped at him.

"Huh, no, back me up here Dean, he told us himself, he doubts, he has emotions like guilt, I know I've seen it behind the wall of blankness, he has them and he hasn't fell. He isn't an unmovable hammer like you describe your kind." He snapped right back, taking a step towards Anna, not falling for her act for a second.

"Guys." Sam called breaking the tension that had settled in the room when they all turned their inquisitive faces to their resident genius, "I found it."

On the road to pure creation.

…

"Anna's grace is gone, you understand, she can't angel-up, she can't protect us. We can't fight Heaven and Hell, one side maybe but not both." Ruby said panic rising in her eyes.

"I hate to say it Dean but I agree with the demon." Harry said grimacing at his own words.

Dean floundered and started his pacing again, his eyes darting all over. The grace had been their only plan, their only salvation and the older brother needed something like that or he couldn't function properly, he needed a goal, a way out, Harry knew that and he watched in silence as Dean tore at his hair, he didn't blame him, things weren't looking real good at the moment.

"Guys, the angels are talking again." God he was so sick of her, each time she opened her mouth his magic leaped and crackled around him and he had to struggle to keep it together, it was a constant fight with himself and he wanted Anna gone as soon as possible. "It's weird, like a recording, a loop. It says: 'Dean Winchester gives us Anna by midnight or…'"

"Or what?" Dean exclaimed breathless and anxious.

Anna turned her head to stare at Dean with her big honest brown eyes and he knew with clear acceptance that he wouldn't like what she was about to say, "Or we hurl Harry Potter back to damnation."

He closed his eyes, which happened to be a bad idea because he could all but imagine _Alastair's delighted face staring up at him drawling, "Welcome back sweet boy." Hooks tearing at his flesh and cold scalpel already back on his fragile skin_. The scar on his shoulder burned, burned and _burned_. Bile rose up in his throat and he swallowed painfully.

He didn't know if the brothers thought he was worth going against both armies, it was pure blackmail: a life against another. After all, the angels, Ruby, it seemed everybody had said that he shouldn't have ever left the pit and besides it was selfish of him to think he was worth more than Anna, even if he didn't like her, it didn't mean he wanted her dead.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he snapped his eyes open meeting the warm green ones of Dean; he scrambled to hide his doubts, his self-loathing and pitiful insecurities but from the look on the other's face he had made a poor job of it.

The hand squeezed tightly in reassurance and he felt some of his fears wash away, he should know by now that Dean wasn't one for giving up. His gaze moved to the room and locked with hazel orbs and he found determination and anger in them, he felt himself smile and nodded in understanding, Sam responded in kind.

They weren't letting him go, at least, not quietly.

Nobody noticed the dark orbs watching the interaction keenly with narrowed eyes.

"Anna, do you know of any weapon that works on an angel?" Sam asked with a determined deep voice marked with urgency.

"To what? To kill them?" Asked an astonished Anna and he couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"No, to play knights and dragons with them, what do you think?" He snapped at her impatiently, Dean put a calming hand on him that for once didn't really do anything for him, his gut churned and turned uncomfortably in sick knowing fear and he felt himself pale dramatically as time went on. Because he knew, he bloody well knew what awaited him downstairs and now that he was back and that he had something to live for, a sort of make shift family, well he didn't want back downstairs.

He really didn't.

Anna regarded him with a cold glare only for him and he just stared, utterly unimpressed.

"Nothing we could get to. Not right now." She stated and he felt himself sit down in despair.

"Wait, wait, wait. I say we call Bobby, get him back from Hedonism-" Dean said in fake calmness that didn't fool anyone.

Sam whirled around to look at his brother in a mixture of incredulity and irritation, "Dean, what's he going to tell us that we don't already know-"

"I don't know but we got to think of something." The older hunter exclaimed looking down at Harry in raging helplessness, Dean's eyes mapping out his face in desperation like he was already doomed back in the basement and he couldn't face it so he bore his head up to come face to face with Sam's unnervingly intense gaze shifting from his brother to him.

He had the sudden startling thought that he was partly sure and he somewhat trusted that the younger brother with his squared broad shoulders and effective brain cells will find a way out of this mess or die trying.

…

He had been dozing on and off for the past last hours, never really sleeping but never really awake, he didn't know if he could in his current state.

Dean was clutching at his flask of alcohol like it was his life-line and he didn't know what had happened while he had been asleep but Anna was different around the jade-eyed man, something had happened and he didn't like where his thoughts brought him.

As for Sam, he was pacing back and forth in agitation wondering where his hell-girl was and Harry, well him he was watching all that in silence because they didn't have a plan and he was more and more certain that he would finish this rather antic-climatically sunny day attached to the darkness of his personal rack.

The doors suddenly blasted open in a, by now, familiar fashion and he wasn't that surprised to see Castiel and his fellow soldier stroll in with powerful strides like they bloody owned the place. They all heaved themselves up with Sam going protectively in front of him, his big hand hovering over him like it could stop them, it couldn't but it did make him feel weirdly better. Dean did the same thing with Anna even if something in his gaze told Harry it was useless.

"Hello Anna. It's good to see you." Said Cas and he almost snorted because clearly Castiel applied social conveniences at the wrong times.

"How? How did you find us?" Asked Sam strangely out of breath, maybe he could also feel the halo of power the angels were emitting, it was filling the entire room and it squeezed and tightened around them, it was like two comets trapped and wanting nothing but to get out.

Castiel's blue eyes regarded Dean and it was all the answer they needed. "Dean?" Sam asked incredulous but Harry had a feeling heavy blackmail was involved; the angels seemed to have only one way of doing things.

"I'm sorry." Dean whispered and he sounded it too, a bit more broken but nonetheless unregretful.

"Why?" Sam demanded, betrayal coating the word.

"Because they gave him a choice, they either kill me or kill you two. I know how their minds work." Accused Anna, self righteousness painted all over a stance.

When Anna kissed Dean goodbye, he had the answer he had dreaded to his earlier ponderings and he felt his fists clenched at how she had used the older hunter.

"I'm ready." She stated facing her kind; he reluctantly admitted, bravely.

"I'm sorry." Castiel said and he could see the angel honestly was.

Anna however shook her head, "No you're not, not really. You don't know the feeling." She said harshly, glaring hotly at the trench coat wearing angel.

And he could see it wounded Cas the way she said it like it was an indisputable fact and he couldn't help himself, the need to defend the one who had saved him rearing its griffon head up, "Can't you see he really is sorry and accept it for what it is for Merlin's sakes."

Castiel snapped his sapphire eyes on him, staring deeply into his own emeralds and nodding with a little hesitant smile which he responded with his own wide one, glad to have put an emotion on the usually blank faced man. Uriel and the others all stared at him and Castiel oddly for a second before shaking their heads in bewilderment but he could see small smiles on the brothers' faces and the indignant sound that had come out of Anna's lips were gratification enough.

"Just make it quick." She said turning back to the two angels.

A displacement of air behind them was all the warning they got before an awfully well known voice exclaimed in fake outrage, "Don't you touch a hair on that poor girl's head."

Oh no.

Alastair.

They turned around in alarm to see Ruby bleeding heavily between two demons henchmen. They were backed up with angels on one side and demons on the other, or in other word: screwed.

Sam acting quickly and he was thankful because he had been frozen in place since the oozing voice had reverberated in the barn, took his arm and dragged him on the side back to chest, Dean doing the same with Anna as they saw Ruby crawling away.

It was like in one of Dudley's video games, angels versus demons and he didn't really know who to put his money on, he hoped it would be Castiel but like he had said many times in the past: he wasn't big on hope.

The tension was steadily rising as both of their energies rose up to the challenge, Alastair's black thick aura against the blinding white of Uriel as they exchanged Shakespearian worthy insults. His magic crackled around him uneasily in front of the explosive mix.

It snapped and in a flurry of motions they saw Uriel fighting two demons on one side, Castiel tackling Alastair head on and he watched in worry as what the angel wanted to do clearly didn't work against this particular demon, not that he was surprised, Alastair proved to be rather hard to kill.

Alastair beat Castiel to the ground and started chanting, crushing the angel's vessel and whatever he was doing was clearly hurting the blue-eyed man. He could feel his magic rising and he wrenched himself out of Sam's strong grip, "Harry!" He heard the man crying out in alarm but he barely heard him, he felt the smooth wood of his wand dropping into his hand and he pointed it at the demon that haunted his nightmares, "Stupefy!"

Alastair was pushed into the opposite wall and Harry dropped next to Castiel, "Alright Cas?" He asked in concern.

"I am fine, thank you." Castiel said looking at him in gratitude and he smiled back, passing a hand in his hair in embarrassment.

"Anytime." He said blushing slightly.

He got back up when he saw the demon heaving himself off the wooden ground, "Harry, Harry, _Harry_, oh how I missed the _feel_ of your magic, so _powerful_ in such a little package, oh God but just _look at you_ all defiant and stubborn again. I could work on you all over, you're back to being the white canvas I remembered from when you first step into Hell, it wouldn't even be boring." Harry took careful steps back in front of the white eyes and raw pleasure filled voice all but _crooning_ about him like he was his pet. Dean and Sam were in front of him in seconds, a barrier of anger and rage where he could hide himself from all the memories it brought forth.

"And Dean, I'm so very disappointed in you, you had such promise." Alastair scolded tauntingly like Dean was a bad student that needed to be reprimanded and he felt his eyes widen as Sam looked at his brother questioningly and Dean was seemingly frozen in place, he put his hand on the leather clad back to show his support, wishing he could do more.

"Shut your eyes!" He heard Anna scream.

White light.

It was over.

…

They were all sitting on the Impala, relief painted all over their respective features, relaxing with a well deserved drink. He was sitting next to Sam leaning a bit tiredly on the strong shoulder, Dean standing and resting on the side of his beloved car; they all opened their beers and clinked them with somewhat sheepish smiles, still stunned at what they had done.

When Dean decided they apparently couldn't catch a break, "I know you heard him." He stated and Harry felt dread pooling in his stomach.

"Who?" Asked Sam in fake obliviousness that he was grateful for at the moment.

"Alastair. What he said about how I had promise." Dean said mournfully. And Harry closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories he could feel poking and prodding at the barriers he had built.

"I heard him." Sam said nodding and picking at the label of his beer.

"You're not curious." No Dean, why do you have to do that… _Why now?_ It's _over_, they fought Heaven and Hell and _won_ and he has to drag this up in the open, _now_. He was tongue tied and couldn't seem to be able to stop the older man and he knew it would help Dean to talk to his brother, he couldn't begrudge him that. He knew it was tearing the older man up to lie to his brother but really, _now_?

"Dean, I'm damn curious but you're not talking about Hell and I'm not pushing." Sam stated and he was nicely surprised the man had finally understood where they were coming from. However, it seemed that statement was what made Dean decide it was time.

"It wasn't four months you know." Dean started and Harry closed his eyes in despair, Sam seemed to have remember how he had react the last time Dean had dared to bring it up and he shifted slightly putting a heavily muscled arm around his thin shoulders and tucking him against his strong chest and he burrowed himself into it, greedily soaking up the warmth and comfort being offered to him that pushed the coldness of Hell away.

"What?" Asked Sam in confusion, looking down at Harry softly before staring back up at his brother.

"It was four months up here but down there, I don't know. Time is different. It was more like forty years." Dean got it out slowly and harshly like the words physically pained him and Sam shook his head in horror before remembering what Harry had said three weeks ago and awful realization downed on him.

"Oh my God." He whispered and Harry understood it was for both Dean and him and he looked up into hazel eyes that were looking at him in terrified knowledge, a tan finger brought a lock of dark hair behind a small ear and his green eyes fluttered closed at the tender action as it kept the cruel reality of Dean's words at bay.

"They sliced and carved and tore me in ways that you…" Dean said tearfully and he could feel wetness on his own cheeks he had neither the force nor the will to wipe away anymore, "Until there was nothing left." There was this hole in the middle of his chest and it burned constantly in remembered pain but sometimes it only ached, it was just always there, a constant reminder of all those years where he had been nothing more but torn up flesh and broken bones. "And then suddenly I would be whole again. _Like magic_. Just so they could start it all over." Harry whimpered turning his head into Sam's shirt as he felt the taller man drop a kiss on the top of his hair, "And Alastair, at the end of every day. _Every one_. He would come over. And he would make me an offer: to take me off the rack… if I put souls on…if I started the torturing. And every day I would tell him to stick it where the sun shines." Harry smiled at that, a little sad and watery smile when he thought back to the beautiful human he had seen for the first time spitting denials, rejections and insults in Alastair's demonic face for years. "For thirty years I told him." Dean exhaled between two ragged breaths on the brink of sobbing, "But then I couldn't do it anymore _Sammy_."

There he pulled himself out of his trance because Dean needed him right now and he gripped the older man in a backward hug, knocking the breath out of the other who stumbled a little under the added weight but smiled sadly but gratefully at him, turning his head to see the understanding and forgiveness Harry hoped were visible in his green orbs. Dean took one of his hands in his own and plowed on, "I couldn't. And I _got off that rack_. God help me, I got _right off it_ and I started ripping them apart. I _lost count_ of how many souls. _Things_ that I did to them…" And Harry gripped him so tightly he was practically chocking Dean with tears falling freely and disappearing on Dean's neck mixing with the racking sobs that had begun to shake the older male.

"Enough Dean." He choked out but it couldn't seem to reach the other one.

"How I feel…" Hollow, raw, defeated, aching all over, tired, _so tired_ and old beyond your years, "Inside me… I wish I couldn't feel anything Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing." He put his forehead on the back of Dean's neck to ground himself and trying to put off the panic attack that he could sense coming, Sam's trembling hand smoothing the hair on the back of his head helped controlling his breathing as he attuned the rhythm of his heart to the pattern the other one was making with his fingers.

He heard light sniffling behind him before the small croaked voice of Sam whispered, "Harry?"

Dean squeezed his hand and he knew it was time; he needed to tell them, for him, for Dean, for Sam, no more lies. He knew he would only find support and comfort in these two strong men but it didn't mean he wasn't afraid, because he was.

He detangled himself from Dean, Sam's hand falling to his side and he felt its lost keenly. He stood up, he couldn't do this sitting down, a little away from the car, his back to them and his eyes lost in the distance, "I…I-

"You don't have to tell us Harry, just…it might help you, you know." Sam said softly and the green-eyed man flashed a small smile at him from over his shoulder.

"No, no I want to, it's just-

"I know squirt." Dean said nodding and staring at him significantly, still tear faced but trying to erase any traces of them.

"Okay." He breathed in. "Okay." He breathed out, his eyes glazed over, "As you know, I was dragged down in May 1998. You do the math, I think it was probably one thousand years and a couple of hundreds, I stopped counting pretty fast." He laughed hollowly, "The demons were delighted, I was the new attraction, they all wanted a piece of the Savior, a long time since they had had a soul that pure they said but they got bored quickly because I wasn't screaming so loud apparently." He chuckled humorlessly, "The only one who was a permanent feature in my damnation was Alastair. Like Dean said, he tore and cut and sliced until he could touch the very bones of my battered, torn up body but that wasn't the worst." He exhaled, trying to control the trembling that was going through his limbs, "You must understand, for a natural wizard, his magic is everything; it's the blood that keeps you alive or even the soul that allows you to feel and he would…he would…rip it away from me just to see what it would do to me…Leave me there cold and alone for days without even torturing me… After a couple of centuries he had found something else: he would let me off the rack and forced me to watch others getting tortured. It was probably the worst…"

"Is this how you met Dean?" Interrupted a tearful Sam, he startled having been lost down memory lane and he turned around to see them both practically sobbing and he sadly smiled, surprised at the fact that they would shed tears _for him. _

Dean looked at him equally inquisitive.

He smiled a little more truly, "No, Dean, Dean was a all another affair. After years and years and I should have been a demon already but wasn't. I wasn't broken, I felt broken but wasn't in _their_ terms. Well Alastair had stopped guarding me." He sneered, "I had heard about the new soul, Dean Winchester and I had always been too curious so I went and I hid myself in his cell for years and I hadn't understand the deal they proposed to you, I hadn't been offered one but it felt significant so I kept on watching and when I saw you were at your breaking point, well, I came and I did what I could but it wasn't enough, it's never enough-" He choked out, breathing heavily, feeling his knees growing weak and buckling under the weight of his memories.

A strong hand on his back and one on his shoulder and he felt himself pulled into a broad chest while the hand was going up and down soothingly on his quivering form and he gripped the checkered shirt in his fists hanging on because he couldn't let it go or he would fall into the gaping black hole that threatened to swallow him whole, "Stop, it's enough Harry, just…stop please." He heard Dean's rough voice whispering in his ear.

"We'll help you. Anything Harry." Sam's deep voice assured him fiercely.

"It was more than enough squirt, I wouldn't have held on as long as I have if it weren't for you." Dean stated honestly.

"But I could ha-" He said desperately only to be cut off.

"Shh, no, Dean held out for thirty years, it's longer than anyone would have." Sam said shushing him before the guilt could overwhelm him.

"Yeah and it's all cause of ya' besides no you couldn't have, Alastair wouldn't have let you, you know that, I know that. So stop." Dean ordered brokenly.

"Okay?" Sam whispered.

Harry nodded sharply, hiding his eyes into Dean's bloody jacket. "You sure?" The older hunter asked looking down.

He stared up into pained muddy green orbs and nodded determinedly.

He had let Dean down once.

He wasn't going to do it again.

-00-

They were in the Impala on their way to another hunt, a normal one, thank God. After the clusterfuck that had been the Anna Milton's case, a ghost would be most welcome; Sam thought snorting at the ridiculousness of his life.

Looking at Harry's peacefully sleeping form in the back seat, he thought back to the past eventful months that he had had.

Sam had always been a believer of the fact that everybody had a good and a bad side, light and dark, yin and yang and you could be defined by where you would choose to tip the scale. He knew it was pretty cliché and a common faith in almost every culture around the world but the thing is, in his line of work, it was something that had kept him alive and relatively sane.

The problem was when he tried to apply it to himself.

Because for him, his _dark side _was just _there, _it wasn't abstract or indefinable; it was tangible and so, so _real_.

It was this, this _thing_ coursing through his veins he could almost feel it circling beneath his skin, this itch he couldn't scratch, that taint, as Harry had _elegantly_ put it months ago, he couldn't possibly wipe away no matter how badly he wanted it gone.

After Dean had died, _torn apart by invisible enemies and him, helpless and bound to the wall with Lilith smirking at him, taunting him_, he had discovered that it was, in a way, sentient.

And it wanted to be used.

It freaking begged to be channeled, it pulsated in his head, in his eyes, around his clenched fists and the only way he had been able to drown its muted cries was with one, or several bottles of Jack.

But then Ruby had found him, he had been desperate, pathetic and lonely and thirsting for revenge and she had given him a reason to fight, to put blood on his hands, a reason to use it.

And he had.

He had tried, practiced, failed and tried harder, he had listened to a demon, had trusted her (and still did to some extent) and when she had tried to kiss him he only had one moment to think about how wrong it was before thinking _fuck it_, who the hell even cares?

He certainly hadn't, he had fucked her in every way possible but always as hard and violent as he could, just pushing and pulling and biting because it was release and emptiness. Ruby represented everything he hated in this world but couldn't seem to live without anymore.

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you." Indeed, he darkly thought.

So he had went on, using it, perfecting it, throwing himself in fights he shouldn't have came out alive of. He had felt good, had felt on top of the world, in control, strong and ready…

Then Dean had come back.

Alive.

And it had been like a bucket of ice water being dropped on him, it had woke him up to the harsh and cold reality of what he had done during those four months.

He had been horrified because Dean, well his good side had somehow taken the form of his older brother and his conscious that had been thrown away in a far corner of his mind had resurfaced, crawling and struggling his way out of the black smudge till' it was screaming at him from all sides.

He hated his brother as much as he loved him for it.

Before it was easy, when Dean wasn't there and _how awful a human being it made him to think that_ but it was the truth, he hadn't had to think, he had just done, had been a beast of simple pleasures: drink/hunt/fuck/sleep.

Not necessarily in that order.

Now, the scale was back and he had to tread carefully lest he lost himself again because that was it, wasn't it? He hadn't really been himself but Dean made him see that even if his brother didn't know, didn't have to know.

And then had come Harry.

He hadn't known what to think about the tiny male just that he hadn't trust him and their back story had been suspicious but he hadn't asked because he hadn't had the right to with what he knew he had done…still did.

When his brother had demanded Harry came with them he had found the mistrust quickly turning into hate. He had wanted to put his foot down and throw a tantrum because he had just got his brother back and he was well entitled to one but then he had seen how his brother's eyes would soften when he had looked at the little hunter, how his shoulders would relax every time Harry came into the room or would tensed whenever he left it, how Harry's only presence smoothed the sharp edges that made his brother or how Dean would look at him the same way he used to when he stared at Sam when they were younger and he thought nobody was watching.

He had caved.

He had hidden his hatred behind simple mistrust and his jealousy behind aloofness and biting jabs but he should have known Harry would be like his brother, an unmovable force in front of his insults, he had taken his dickiness in stride like he had known it would stop.

It had been hard to hate the man too, with his long stupidly messy hair, his freaking accent, his pale white skin, his vulnerable and fragile thin form and most of all his _green_… So. Fucking. Green eyes. Which had somehow irritated Sam even more, itching for a fight and taking all the opportunities he had to go and meet Ruby.

The moment Harry had told them his story he had sensed some of his anger for the smaller man wash away because there was kinship there, a sort of understanding even as a dark voice in his head told him that it would be the perfect opportunity to kick the little wizard to the curb.

But he had promptly told it to shut up.

He had still been jealous of Harry, of all the casual touches and hugs, all the attention he had gotten from his brother, all he had seemed to be able to give Dean when he himself had felt painfully selfish, of their relationship that was so in tuned with the other when he felt completely disconnected from his brother: it was like they couldn't talk for an extensive time before there would be screams and shouts. He was even envious of the fact that the other two had met in Hell which was ridiculous but it was something more they shared that he couldn't possibly comprehend, _couldn't understand _(as Dean had cruelly pointed out) even if he very much wanted to.

He had felt like an outsider in his own home.

And like things couldn't be any worse: _it_ hung on.

He didn't know why he was surprised, it had been with him since he had been a mere babe but he was just so tired of all that anger, all that barely contained rage.

He was angry all of the damn time, at everything and everyone.

Angry at Dean for being a liar, for being weak and for being on his own merry way to alcoholism, angry at Bobby for being so understanding, angry at Ruby for being a sarcastic bitch, angry at the angels for being such dicks, angry at God for being there but just not caring, angry at himself for being so fucked up and angry at Harry for being so…perfect.

He had a sudden epiphany:

At first he had been jealous of Harry but now, now, he was jealous of Dean.

He was jealous of the adoring looks he saw Harry throw at his brother, the badly hidden _love_ he could see shining out of those green emeralds when Dean would joke about something or another, the way the lithe man would automatically lean into the older hunter for protection or comfort…

He could see it wasn't like _that_ between them, that it was a sort of parental, a father/son relationship and wasn't that weird for his brother, he had always thought Dean despised what he calls: _"the apple-pie life"_ but he was proven wrong every day they passed with Harry.

-He realized he didn't really know that side of Dean-

But he couldn't help himself, he wanted those green orbs on him, keep them focused only for him.

There had to be some bewitching power to those goddamn eyes, he was sure of it cause' when Harry had told him to not listen to Ruby, to not do his psychic thing and he had been backed up between the demon's will and Harry's pleas he had been ready to drop everything just to please the wizard, just for him look at Sam with pride.

Dean's disappointed green eyes hadn't done that and he was _his brother._

Harry was his weakness.

He couldn't afford one right now. If he wanted to have Lilith's head on a silver platter then he needed to distance himself from those piercing emeralds.

But it was so fucking _hard_ to ignore them, their _call_.

He had to do something about it but he wasn't sure he would be able to.

…

It wasn't monsters.

And he had wished for a normal gig, what a joke… Then again he shouldn't be surprised, he rarely got what he wished for after all.

It was a kick to the gut too, to know it was _humans_, like Dean had said what felt like a lifetime ago: "Humans, man… They're the worst." It was just fucking humans who had created what was killing people here, deranged people, yes…but normal nonetheless.

Man, they should be spared that kinda shit in their hectic lives; monsters were enough, thank you very much. They shouldn't have to deal with this: wipe other's people's wrongness. He sometimes wondered where the goddamn cops were when you really needed them. Cause _this_, this wasn't their jurisdiction, they had other things to do for Christ's sakes.

Sam felt for the girl, he really did, however they shouldn't have to put down a little human girl even if she was a crazy savage one.

The family they were trying to protect didn't help his mood at all; he wanted to strangle the guy. People could be so idiotic sometimes and it seemed, especially around them.

It was strange really; he felt completely disconnected from them now, _normal people, _he had old worn sympathy that he always kept for the victims and witnesses they encountered but it was detached and sometimes he truly wanted to not care about their fates because _they_ didn't about theirs but he knew he hadn't been born like that so he kept on giving reassurances and concerned words.

He used to like bringing them comfort as him and his brother tried to save them, now… he couldn't help but despise it a bit.

His Stanford memories were getting hazy in the whirlwind of his life blurred by grief and fire and he often wondered how he had done it: blend in.

He knew he couldn't anymore, most of all he didn't want to.

Fortunately for him and he could see to Dean's relief as well, Harry was able to fill it flawlessly, that spot he used to have but had abandoned when his jaggedness had become all too apparent. Sam could now understand what his older brother meant by 'puppy-dog eyes'… Harry had definitely those.

He admired the man who even after having spent that much time being torn apart and seeing the worse the mind could produce, could still be beautifully gentle, generous, sweet and kind; capable of calming an hysterical mother with a few soothing words in that damnable accent, a terrified teenage girl with a few whispered sentences and an intense gaze, a worried father with some careful gestures and a squeeze to the man's shoulder…

It was incredible.

…

Sam wanted out of that house as quickly as possible.

He had been uneasy since the beginning of the case and it hadn't gotten better, not that he had expected it would but it was urgent now cause he could see the hunched shoulders of his brother, Dean had been all coiled up muscles and tension in every visible tendons since they had known it was just some kid. While Harry had been even more withdrawn than usual, his eyes, two green chips of ice dark in remembered suffering and…kinship? Common pain?

…What?

Horrifying comprehension struck him in the face, he had thought the other two were as weirded out as him by the hunt but it wasn't that at all, God, how stupid could he be… It was because they recognized the wild glint in the girl's eyes; they thought they could have become that if they had just stayed long enough in the shadows of the pit…

Though Harry, for some reason, seemed even more touched by the situation they were facing, Sam thought it was perhaps more than Hell, more than even Dean knew… He had the disturbing notion that he was pretty sure he didn't want to find out.

Holy shit, they needed to get out of here real fucking fast.

…

There had been two of them.

Two feral children who hadn't ever seen the light of day, Dean and Harry had had to kill the older boy in self-defense and the girl had been put down by the family father to protect his own.

Fucked up didn't even begin to describe what they had seen and no matter how they had tried to convince themselves that the kids had been barely human, it still didn't quite sit right with the three of them. He had a feeling more the other two than him though, when had he become the insensitive one, he didn't know and he didn't want to delve deeper into that anytime soon…

Dean and Harry had been subdued and silent since they had left the house, the older hunter not looking anyone in the eyes and only grunting when he tried to tease a bit to make light of the situation, the green-eyed man pensive and obviously silently suffering, thin arms wrapped around himself in a tight wounded ball of angst and grief in the backseat.

And when they stopped to eat at the side of the road leaning on the black car and Dean looked at his burger and put it down in disgust and Harry next to his bother didn't even take it…

He had had quite enough.

"You both okay?" He asked cautiously at the two men in front of him.

"You know I felt for those sons of bitches back there. Life-long torture turn you into something like that…" It was what he had feared then, he worriedly glanced at the smaller hunter, the reminders of the last two times Hell was brought up fresh and clear in his mind, as he had expected Harry was once again eyes closed and beautiful green gems hidden, struggling anew with his invisible demons.

The little hunter was even straightening himself to go away and let them have this conversation between brothers, however Dean wasn't okay with that and the man's hand shot out of his pocket to grip the smaller man's arm. Harry immediately and obediently stopped in his steps, following the arm with a glare to his brother's eyes that were all but swirling with emotions as he fixed Harry right back.

And he watched fascinated as Harry slumped in on himself in defeat in front of Dean's desire for him to be there, to listen to what he had to say.

Sam was two seconds away to snap at his brother for the unneeded cruelty to force Harry into a new confession but his words caught in his mouth as Dean brought the dark haired male against him and both visibly relaxed at the embrace.

Jealousy reared its ugly twisted head, it raged and stormed in him but he reined it in the best he could, none of them needed that right now.

He dryly swallowed and carefully spoke, "You were in Hell Dean." It didn't seem to work at all but he was painfully aware of his short-comings on the subject, he was flying blind every time they talked about their times in the basement and he had the hated feeling of helplessness each time it was brought up but he was nothing if not stubborn, so he continued, "Look maybe you did what you did there. But you're not them. They were barely human."

"You're right." Relief filled him for all of one second before it was crushed down in front of his brother's equally bull-headed nature, he had forgotten how his older brother was when he didn't want to listen, when he wanted to drown himself into an endless pit of guilt, "I wasn't like them. I was worse." Jesus… Had Dean always been such a glutton for punishment? "They were animals Sam, defending territory. Me… I did it for the shear pleasure."

He startled because what the hell? Pleasure? Whe-

Harry whimpered in his brother's grasp and tightened the hold he had on Dean's arm, he could see knuckles turning white, eyes squeezed so painfully shut the lithe male must have been seeing stars. His older brother's right limb brought him even more closely to him till there was absolutely no space between the two of them. Dean put his forehead down on Harry's messy mop of hair and breathed slowly in and out and he would give anything just to know what was passing through their minds.

Dean lifted his head, eyes closed before he snapped them open locking them on him, fixing him like he wanted to drill what he was about to say in Sam's mind, for it to be printed in fire on Sam's brain.

It seemed he was going to find out.

"I _enjoyed it_ Sam. They took me off the rack and I tortured souls and I _liked_ _it_." Dean stated like it was fact in a history book and Sam couldn't even begin to understand all the thoughts, all the emotions and feelings passing through him at that declaration; he watched, numb, as Harry struggled in Dean's vice-like desperate hug, green eyes open, vacant and tearful, biting and scratching half-heartedly at the muscled arm barring his escape but Dean was an unmovable force behind him even as he saw it: the broken pain growing tenfold in the hazel-green eyes of his brother at Harry's distress. Dean waited and when they both saw the drained form and sluggish tired movements of the pale skinned man, he plowed on, "All those years, all that _pain_, finally getting to deal some of that yourself… I didn't care who they put in front of me because, that, that pain I_ felt_… It just slipped away. No matter how many people I save. I can't change that. I can't fill this _hole_… _Not ever_."

Harry suddenly wrenched himself away, ending up on his knees in front of Sam and gripping his head with his thin hands, "Just stop!" Was the screamed plea said in a heartbreaking hoarse voice. Sam focused on the broken wizard, a distraction from the cold-hearted truth and painful honesty that his brother was grinding between hissed breaths, from his own raging thoughts.

Sam pulled Harry up and he was like a puppet whose strings had been cut in his hold.

When he had folded the limp magic user against him, feeling tears wetting his army jacket, Harry straightened himself once again and he was amazed at how strong their little addition truly was as he turned around and took a step toward his wide-eyed older brother, "Stop that. Please, just stop it." He repeated more calmly and then… he punched his brother squared in the jaw before throwing himself at a stunned Dean and he couldn't really hear the muffled words they were saying but he thought it sounded a lot like,

"I never blamed you."

"You should have."

"Then, I forgive you."

Bile rose up his throat as sick understanding filled him.

He had always wanted to know what had happened to his brother down in Hell, now he wanted nothing more but to forget everything.

-00-

Dean was the only one awake as he drove them aimlessly into the starless night cause they didn't have a hunt but they hadn't wanted to stop for a single minute.

A certain restlessness had fallen on Sam since whatever happened during the 'magic for douchebag' case that his brother didn't want to talk about and he wanted to snap at the little bitch so bad cause he had pore his heart out to him, forced and _tortured_ Harry into confessing and Sammy still didn't say anything. A wall of clenched jaw and tense muscles in his unwillingness to follow his own advice and _share_. But he had stopped himself from ranting and raving at his little brother when he had seen the glazed look Sam had sported, the concerned frown Harry always seemed to have when he looked at his brother nowadays, his little brother was clearly struggling with his ever-elusive escapades and if he didn't want their help then…

There was nothing he could do but trust him.

It was getting harder and harder as the pile of secrets kept growing.

Dean was still reeling from the vision of a very, _very_ pissed off Harry; it was rather scary and he didn't want to be anywhere near the end of the cold glare the wizard had send Charlie, _ever_. Immortality was clearly a touchy subject and ever since the beginning of the hunt when they had figured out it was demon-deal magic Harry had been in a downright awful mood.

It seemed the real magician hated them phonies with a passion, more than even _he_ did which was a fit.

He had showed them, what real, pure and powerful magic had meant and he knew Harry hadn't wanted to kill the man but his hand had been forced when Dean had been choked and Sam had nearly been impaled.

He was proud to say that he hadn't felt the usual uneasy feeling he used to have when Harry had done his lights show.

Sam had been out of it for the entirety of their stay and had brought the taboo topic of _normality_. He didn't know what had happened to make Sammy think about it and he didn't believe his brother when he had said it was _nothing. _But he was tired of the chick-flick moments that seemed to happen more and more this past month so he had let it go, he was sure he was going to regret it but well, Dean will cross that bridge when he'll come to it.

…

"Guys", Sam said entering the motel room they had took for the rest of the night, a smile stretching his features that dimmed the vacant look he had been wearing almost constantly for the last few days, "I found us a case and you'll never guess where it is."

…

"So, what's up with this case?" Harry asked as he leaned over, poking his head between the two front seats, looking at Sam curiously.

"Geek kid drowns a cheerleader." Sam answered absently.

Harry snorted, "The usual American high school drama then."

"It's like Grease but with more blood." Dean quipped chuckling and smiling at the green-eyed man.

Sam hummed, "I think it's a demon possession."

Dean quirked watching his brother with a teasing glint, "Right… I just think you want to go back to school."

Sam turned to him annoyed but thankfully with a light in his eyes that had all but disappeared lately, "Shut up jerk, I remember you having fun here didn't you, you big badass hunter?"

He turned away looking at the building where they had spent some weeks a lifetime ago, yeah, fun, right, whatever…More like being told by girls who thought they knew him just because Dean had groped them in a broom closet and being watched constantly by teachers who looked at him like he was a beast… Yeah, real good times…

Harry's question brought him back out of his darkening thoughts; memory lane wasn't a good place to be when you were a Winchester. "You used to go here?" He asked eyebrows rising.

"For a couple of months", he said remembering dimly light halls and the cold stares of kids who thought he was trailer trash and professors who thought he was trouble, "This school was just one on a list of many."

Harry looked at them in turn thoughtfully and Dean had the sensation that the other was seeing through all his well-practiced bravado and onto all the memories and feelings school had left him with. He shouldn't be surprised; Harry seemed to do that a lot: seeing right through Dean Winchester's bullshit.

"So what's our cover?" He asked Sam quickly trying to ignore the silent stare Harry was leveling at him beneath the curls of his dark hair, "F.B.I agents? Homeland security? Swedish foreign exchanged students?"

"I have a better idea." Sam said with an ever growing smile on his tan face as he regarded them thoughtfully, the smile that meant they weren't going to like this at all.

…

"You look like a prat, it's ridiculous." Harry stated with a smile and sparkling emeralds.

Dean's only response was to blow the whistle hanging around his neck sharply into the other's slender face, immaturely enjoying Harry's visible wince at the sound, "Don't talk back to your teacher." He ordered, his lips twitching the only thing that belied his act.

Harry rubbed at his ears sulking, "Why do I have to be a student? I want a whistle." He whined pouting.

Dean grinned and waved the whistle beneath the smaller man's nose. Harry had reverted to an almost infantile demeanor since the "Hell talks", has he had come to refer them, he was no Dr. Seuss but he was pretty sure there was a connection there, he just had no idea how to take it. For now it suited Dean just fine to indulge in childish humor, he had almost forgot how fun it was to have someone to banter with as Harry had been scarily quiet until the magic case and this one and his brother, well his little brother had been distant and irritable. Sam had so far more or less ignore them however Dean could see the muscle in his jaw twitching.

Dean was sad he kind of expected it by now.

"Cause we need someone on the inside who can talk easily to the other kids and you're the only one of us that looks their age." Sam supplied patiently.

Harry huffed and ran a hand through his hair nervously but sighed in compliance, "I can't talk _easily_ to them though." He must have seen the annoyance directed at him because he quickly added, "Alright, alright, I'll do it."

Dean twirled his new favorite toy lazily as Harry battered it away automatically, "Besides…" He smirked when he saw he had the younger one's attention, "They'll love the accent."

Harry looked at them horrified before blushing endearingly and the brothers looked at each other before uncontrollable laughter bubbled up out of them.

This case was an unsuspected God send, he thought.

…

Dean happened to like playing gym teacher.

He liked the power; the infamous whistle and he weirdly kinda liked the runts as well. Despite the ugly get up he figured he had gotten the better hand of the stick when he had seen his little brother wiping up sick and trying to find sulphur on dirty floors.

Being a gym teacher (not a real teacher that is) meant he had a lot of time keeping an eye out for Harry, cause' youthful appearance notwithstanding his eyes gave him away.

His glowing green orbs were fierce, sharp, defensive and just on this side of broken.

He hadn't ever seen a teenager with eyes like Harry's and he was waiting the moment someone would call him out.

Plus, he was worried, which seemed to be his default mode when thinking about the younger hunter but he couldn't help himself, Harry had been the epitome of uncomfortable, practically radiating awkwardness this morning when he had walked through the school's front doors and he wanted to make sure he was doing okay.

Because if he was getting bullied like Sam had when they had come through those very same classrooms then he didn't care he had pounds of muscle on them or that they were younger, he would beat the thugs to a pulp. Not that he didn't think Harry couldn't handle his own, just that well… habits die-hard.

No one questioned Harry's age though and Dean had been right, the students did love the accent. He had deliberately followed a group of teenage girls all talking about going to see the new kid, scowling as they talked about the English man like he was some sort of attraction and he winced thinking about what Harry could do to them if they really annoyed the wizard.

He shouldn't have.

Turning the corner sharply, he could see an ever-growing group of teen girls surrounding a dark messy haired head, Harry was wide-eyed and terrified in front of the cheerleaders all leaning provocatively on him and asking of him to say random words. The boy he had seen provoking a fucking angel without batting an eyelash seemed to be nothing more than a scared skittish kitten in front of a giggling group of flirting girls. He could see a line of young jocks leaning on the lockers and watching the interaction with a mix of awe and jealousy.

He snickered but seeing the luminous pleading green eyes he pushed his way through and grabbed Harry's thin arm, pulling him into a less crowded spots.

He heard a loud sigh of relief and couldn't help the chuckle that escaped, "Having fun yet?" He asked lightly.

"Oh yeah, loads." Sarcasm biting, "It's official, I hate high school." Harry sated seriously.

"Aww. Are the other kids being mean to you?" He said it teasingly but there was steel in the back of his words that hadn't fooled Harry who looked up at him behind thick eyelashes, gratifying Dean of a small genuine smile with a thankfulness that was staggering and a little bit more than he had expected.

And not for the first time he wondered what had happened to the younger man, what had been done to him to put such a look on his face, cause he didn't think it was only Hell, there was so much more to it and he suddenly wanted to ask, to demand Harry told him but he knew it wasn't the time nor the place.

He fixed a blank spot in front of him to regain his bearing and the violent urge he could feel rising at the disturbing thought.

Besides he wasn't naïve and he knew asking wouldn't really give him an answer, he had a feeling Harry hadn't told a lot of people, perhaps nobody at all, about that part of his life and he wanted the green-eyed man to think of him as the one he could tell, to be the one Harry would want, _would need_, to talk about it with.

"No they love me…I just, I don't know how to act, I can't be a teen like them. It's hard and stressful and they keep asking me stupid questions and inviting me and…What is even a bloody Homecoming anyway?!" Harry suddenly burst out, eyes a bit crazed.

Dean laughed outright at that and _Jesus_, the sound of his own laughter startled him a little, it had been too long since he had genuinely laughed, felt like forever actually.

"It's…dude, God…It's an American high school tradition like an end of the year ball or something, never actually been to one so that's all I can give you. You'd have to research." He added as an afterthought, smirking and still spontaneously chuckling.

"What? I hate those dancing type of things. Bloody stupid custom if you ask me… So are we nearly done? I don't think I can handle being a teenager anymore, the teachers think I'm an idiot." Harry grumbled under his breath.

"They do? Why?" He asked curiously cause Harry was pretty far from dumb.

"I haven't been to normal school since I was eleven, and thousand of years in the pit didn't really help you know." Harry said nonchalantly, like he wasn't referring so casually to endless years of torture.

Fuck, of course, Harry wasn't a moron but apparently Dean was, the joyful mood was gone in an instant, replaced by a somber atmosphere that stretched into heavy silence. He focused on the other questions, "Sam said he couldn't find any E.M.F in the school. Whatever happened here, I don't think it's supernatural, we should be out of role-play duty by tomorrow." Dean said shrugging, trying to forget Harry's painful sincerity.

Harry brightened and left looking a bit lighter.

…

When Sam and Harry found him they were covered in blood, from their hands to his brother's borrowed overalls and Harry's ripped jeans. The two of them with shocked, darting expressions.

Familiar panic gripped him at seeing Sam and Harry and blood, he jerked forward, his hands hovering and his eyes searching for any obvious wounds, "Sammy? Squirt?" He demanded.

"It's not ours." Sam whispered and thick relief washed through him as he stepped and run his hands through the blood finding no damage on the fabric of their clothing. "Kid stuffed some jock's hand in a blender."

"There was something near the kid, some strange goo." Harry added whispering and in shock even as he obviously struggled to snap back.

"Ectoplasm." His little brother confirmed.

"So we got a ghost on our hands?" Dean asked, just to be sure because ectoplasm meant ghost, strong one but a salt-and-burn nonetheless and that simplified things a great deal in his opinion.

"No E.M.F in the building." Sam said in confusion and Dean could literally see the wheels spinning behind his hazel eyes before one of his big hand passed through his shaggy hair in momentary defeat, "But maybe we can see if somebody died bloody around here or something?"

"No, not in the school." Harry interrupted, "The possessed boy just now and the girl that drowned the cheerleader, well, the kids made a connection: they take the same bus and the bus just got a new driver."

"How did they figure that out?" Sam asked with a frown.

"Don't know, don't want to, you wouldn't believe what I learned through the gossips milling around in here. They're sick; they're actually placing bets on which kids will snap next. They're calling it 'revenge of the nerds'." Harry said with disgust coating his words as he wiped his bloody hands on his already blood coated pants and Dean had to agree, that, that was fucked up but from experience, he could safely say: kids were cruel.

"Ghost possession," Sam rubbed his own dirtied hands on his legs, wincing and Dean empathized with them right now cause you never really get used to that feeling, "It's pretty rare but if a ghost gets angry enough they can take control of a person's body. There's lore about spirits possessing people and riding them for miles, then whenever they leave the body, they're bunged back to their usual haunt. But until then, the ghost can go wherever they want."

He felt his lips twitch as Harry observed Sammy in stunned amazement.

That was his brother for you: the walking and talking encyclopedia of weirdness.

"So spook grabs a kid on the bus and walks right into Truman? Great, ghosts' getting creative." Dean said passing a hand through his spiky hair to his neck and rubbing at the sudden tension in his muscles.

"Do you know who the bus driver is?" Sam asked with a newly found steadiness, blood gone from his face.

"An old man called McGregor." Harry answered nodding and would have gone on if Sam hadn't suddenly become so tense they both heard the gasping breath he sucked up.

"McGregor." Repeated Sam hollowly, "You sure?"

"Hmm, yeah, are you alright Sam?" Asked a concerned Harry.

"I knew his son, Dirk McGregor." Sam hissed out between two ragged breaths.

Oh, Dean knew him too, "That dick that used to bully you?" The older hunter asked; the memory about someone hurting his little brother coming razor-sharp and more acutely than anything he remembered about the school. Sam nodded absently brows furrowed and eyes pensive.

Harry startled at the question and the following affirmation looking at Sam incredulous, tracing his eyes on the tall muscular man from his massive hands to his strong chest and biceps with a look of disbelief clearly painted on his features, "You got bullied?" He asked suspicious.

Dean felt a silly smile stretching his mouth.

Sam looked down at Harry giving him a twisted half-amused smile, "I didn't get my growth spurt till' I was fifteen."

"Hmm, right…" Said Harry mistrust in his narrowed eyes.

"It's true, he was a midget before he decided to annoy the shit out of everybody by getting three feet in one month." Dean said amusingly.

"Okay…" Harry said dubiously, "It's alright Sam, I'm twenty eight and I'm still waiting for mine." The pale skinned man stated pouting and patting the taller man on the shoulder.

…

Dean and Sam went to see Dirk's father, leaving Harry to survive the rest of his day in class.

The younger hunter had been dragged off by a group of very pretty cheerleaders looking like he was being taken to be executed rather than to be squeezed between young beautiful women for hours. Even Sammy had laughed outright at the green-eyed man's misery and they had cracked jokes at his expense for the entire drive to McGregor's house. It almost felt like old times.

(_Almost_ being the operative word.)

It didn't last long.

A dead mother, a deadbeat dad and Dirk wasn't the brute Sam had faced down anymore but an angry, hurt kid who had had it rough and hadn't known how to deal with it who reminded Sam too much of himself. Except this kid had killed himself. The more they stayed, the more they heard, the more he wished his little brother hadn't come, still wanting to protect Sam as unrealistic and foolish as it sounded.

By the time they left, his brother was back to the angry, brooding man whom Sam was quickly becoming and he watched as his little brother tortured himself silently, hunched shoulders, eyes dark and angry huffs of breaths.

"Sam…" He didn't know where he was going with this, anything to wipe that look off his brother's face. He didn't have the time to continue before he was harshly cut off by a deep shadowed voice.

"He was just as scared and miserable as everyone else and I made it worse." Sam spat guiltily at nothing, not even listening to whatever Dean might have said, turning his back on him, a tensed wall against any comforting words the big brother could have offered.

Dean gripped the wheel tighter and they remained in oppressing silence the length of the journey back to Truman.

The sun had gone down when they arrived in front of the by now closed high school, the street lights shading the building and the figure waiting for them in an eerie glow. Harry was sitting patiently on the stairs' steps, crouched down and glaring at nothing. He smiled at the sullen air surrounding the man for it to disappear slowly and gradually off his face when a teacher appeared out of the shadows stepping confidently near Harry who innocently stood up to face the authority figure who was beckoning him closer with a familiar hunger shining out of his greedy dark blue eyes.

He could see from his vantage point when the older man placed a hand on Harry's bird-like shoulder dragging his thumb on the delicate collarbone poking out of the worn AC/DC shirt he used to wear when he was fifteen that he had lend the smaller man which was still too big on the other. An unfamiliar sick feeling settled in him as he saw Harry's green eyes growing wide then blushing and when the tall teacher came closer and Harry tensed…

Turning his eyes and seeing the same intense emotions mirrored on his brother's face, "Shall we." He whipped out in the uncomfortable silence, Sam nodded sharply and he hadn't even waited for that as his hand was already on the handle and opening his door harshly, not even bothering to close it and the lack of clacking sound behind him made him aware that Sam was already hot on his heels.

They swallowed the ground separating them from Harry and the _son of a bitch_ in quick, urgent strides. When he knew he was within earshot and as he saw the older man bend over a frozen Harry to whisper something in his small ear, his vision turned red and his eyes were growing hazy in Hell-fury, making them slightly blurry around the edges, "Harry." He barked startling them and he saw Harry turning to them with relief overwhelming the scared expression he had just worn. The obviously reckless man however still hadn't relinquished his hold over the younger one looking at their looming and threatening approaching forms in defiance.

Good, he thought darkly as he saw Sam making a bee-line for the man, his little brother needed to let off some steam.

"_If you touch him, One. More. Time you disgusting bastard." _Dean breathed out, only for the man to hear, _"I'll kill you."_ He added, hissing between painfully clenched teeth, glaring at the now, nervous looking man, the teacher's blue eyes jumping back and forth between Sam and him.

Dean ripped Harry out of his reach and tucked the smaller man against him, soothingly passing a hand through his hair, trying to control his breathing and relax his jaw to be able to talk without growling or punching the next flat surface, "You okay?" He croaked out roughly.

"M' fine." Harry shakily said his words muffled into the fabric of Dean's shirt.

"Yeah, right…" He trailed off…

And they both watched as Sam gripped the man by the collar practically dangling the professor in the air in his fury, growling lowly, "_How dare you?_" Sammy then punched the other so hard, they all heard the bones of his jaw breaking, and oh, how he _longed_ to do the same thing and worse as they observed his little brother dropped the older, blood stained, male unceremoniously on the gravel sidewalk and lifting a big leather clad foot before aiming it in a powerful kick in between the battered man's legs. He howled in pain before letting out a satisfyingly weak whimper.

They turned their backs on the pathetic slump body of the freakin' pedophile, the storm tediously clearing from the brothers' features, a still shaken Harry within their arms.

It had been a long time since he had been that angry.

It had been a long time since he had been that proud of his little brother.

…

"The boot of this car is like Mary Poppins' trunk I swear." Harry said in fake cheerfulness but finally steady voice as Dean unrolled the traffic spikes that they will put on the road.

When they had finally relaxed back to something that resembled normal, Dean had explained, cause Sam was tight with memories and emotions in his seat, what they had got from the distraught father and hashed out the plan for the newbie hunter. It had successfully kept their attention away from how despicable humanity sometimes was.

Damn. Fucking. Humans.

Dean glanced at the smaller man with sparkling green with golden specks' eyes, "Boot." He scoffed, poorly mimicking the English accent; he was rewarded by a playful glare that made him smile teeth showing and face hurting.

Device in place, they waited.

The familiar feeling of adrenaline filled him as he launched forward towards the damaged bus.

…

They were three lumbering battered and bruised forms by the time the fight was over and Dean didn't wait for even a second before propelling the Impala forward and into the night, away from the souvenirs of a broken youth.

-00-

Harry didn't know when it happened, he thought it was probably after the fake magicians' case or maybe it was before and he just didn't see it, didn't want to see it but Sam's dark aura was back and Harry just didn't know what to do.

He wanted to tell Dean or even go up to Sam about it but it never felt like the good time or the right place and he was feeling like a coward. The mistrust and suspicions that was ever growing in the brother's eyes while they would look at each other when they thought the other wasn't watching was cutting and painful to witness and really didn't help him, because he knew it would be adding fuel to a roaring fire. They kept to themselves, they gave an all-new meaning to _"playing it close to the vest"_, especially Sam, the fact that Dean had opened up, been honest about Hell didn't seem to have changed anything (and wasn't _that_ a kick to the gut).

Their bond that had used to be strong and seemingly unbreakable was tearing up bit by bit, leaving a gasping black hole in its place. A hole that Harry couldn't hope to fill, no matter how hard he tried. All his efforts were in vain, all his gestures, words, trusting glances… Everything accounted to absolutely nothing in front of what they used to have but didn't anymore. He was tempted to leave because of the little dark voice in his head that kept telling him it was his fault, that he didn't help at all, just made it worse for both of the brothers.

Plus, and he felt bad about thinking that, but it was the cold-hearted truth: he didn't need that sort of thing, he didn't need the drama that seemed to cling to the Winchesters brothers like glue, didn't want it. Harry was already a wreck, staying in that bloody black car wasn't going to help him or the two mountains of raw pain, angst and cracked edges sitting in the front seats.

But this thought was, as always, only passing, he wasn't going to leave _Dean_, who was he kidding. Cause even if Dean didn't really need him here, well Harry needed him. _He needed so much_, it was so thick and tangible he could almost grasp it. He, as sad as it was, depended on them, they were his only links to humanity left and he was needy, greedy and he _starved_ for all their touches, hugs, reassuring pats, fond gazes and affectionate words. It was like a sodding _drug_, one he couldn't live without, one he would move oceans for, that he _loved_ as much as he sometimes _hated_ and one that, well, let's not lie…was potentially deadly.

They were on their way to a possible hunt and as he was musing, he watched as Dean's hazel-green eyes strayed to his little brother as they were prone to do for the last hour and he felt as if he had missed something because the ill-hidden doubts and barely concealed distrust were all too apparent in the emotional orbs of the older man, and how could something happened _between seven a.m. and eight o'clock_ he didn't know but they had obviously done it…

Merlin, he hoped this case would be a good one.

They all needed the distraction.

…

Strippers.

Of course.

He had been a blushing mess since they had figured out where they would have to search to investigate. Suffering under the teasing of the Winchester men that hadn't had mercy on him after seeing his embarrassed fumbles and stuttered protests to follow them there. It wasn't really a hardship to support the offending remarks and he kept his smile hidden under a well-trained scowl.

And Harry had kind of had his wish granted after all, Dean, indeed _was_ distracted by naked girls and Sam was a not so reluctant companion in this particular endeavor. He was glad to see a little up turn of the lips on the taller man's face as they observed Dean's silliness as the older hunter raved and ranted about how _finally_ they were on a case involving strippers and how he had waited for this day since he had been old enough to "build a shotgun" and "steal a playboy magazine", his words.

Then let's see what all the fuss is about.

…

He wanted to leave.

He had used the I.D. he had made with the goblins before his departure from his birth country and after a suspicious, narrowed glare at his youthful features, he was in.

He damn well regretted it now.

He felt out of place and awkward in the crowd of whistling drunken men and thinly clad clothed gyrating women. He watched impassively as one showed her breasts and not for the first time he wondered what was wrong with him, because no matter his real age, he had died at _eighteen_ and was actually living in the teenage _hormone-filled_ body, he should be affected by this, hell, he should be panting and hard by now. But the only thing he felt was a bit of disgust mixed with the passing thought of: _how could they even do that with their hips?_

So he wondered, there had been Cho, but that was a sad twisted joke for a relationship and then, more significantly, Ginny. He had, at one point, imagined an all future with the redhead, filled with kids and laughter, a life, _a real one_. But it had been like a commercial for some product or another, just a perfect dream that he had fantasized about when all he really knew was survival and Voldemort's cold cackle. Yes, there had been the war, the dead piling up, the desperation and then, the deal, no time for high school crushes.

He knew it was all excuses; he didn't have those to hide behind these days.

_Hell_, it all came down to that now didn't it? A thousand years of torture and he was an empty shell.

That was it.

He couldn't love, at least not like that, couldn't desire anymore, wouldn't ever feel the warmth of another body, 28 years old virgin that he was.

Pathetic…

…But also weirdly relieving to know there was a reason for this particular wrongness of him, this anomaly that differed him from the rest of the world once again. There was so much of them in him now, he couldn't be bothered to feel like a freak, besides this word was already engraved in cold ice letters in the back of his brain.

He was thankfully startled from his darkening thoughts by a pissed Dean and a "hunter-mode", as he sometimes referred to _that_ glint in their eyes, Sam approaching his spot with purposeful steps, "Any luck?" Asked Sam as he let his eyes wander over the club.

"No, you?" Dean said with a sigh.

"What are we even looking for in this place?" Harry asked in frustration and his impatience to get out of here must have shown because both of the brothers turned to look at him with mirth in their eyes and identical smirks on their faces.

He groaned loudly as he heard them snicker.

"Oh, you don't like it here?" Cooed Sam teasingly.

"I find it invigorating!" Dean exclaimed with hands gesture, "The girls, Harry, the girls!"

"Whatever you say mate." He grumbled putting his face in his hands in despair therefore he didn't see when Dean and Sam smiled widely when they looked down upon his dark hair for it be swipe off their faces when they rested their eyes upon each other.

"Well, I talked to Bobby, we officially have a theory." Sam said with something in his voice that could be the beginning of incredulity.

Harry perked up and lifted his head, "Well? Don't keep us waiting here Sam."

"Yeah, I'm no good with suspense, what's that?" Dean added looking at them sideways as his left eye kept wandering to the naked girl in front of them.

"Siren." Sam stated clearly waiting for their reactions.

Dean startled and didn't go back to the strippers this time, looking at his brother with wide-eyes, "Like Greek Myths' Sirens, The Odyssey?"

Sam looked at his brother with raised eyebrows practically touching his hairline.

"What? I read." Dean defended at his brother's skeptical look.

"Yeah actually but the siren isn't actually a myth, it's more of a beautiful creature that prey on men. Entice them with their Siren's song." Sam said loudly over the bad music playing out of the club's speakers.

"Let me guess? 'Welcome To The Jungle'. No, no, Warrant's 'Cherry Pie'." Dean rattled off.

It was like watching a tennis match with those two sometimes.

"Their song is more of a metaphor. Like their call, their allure, you know." Sam corrected.

"So, they shake their thing and the guy zombie out." Dean resumed in his terms.

"Basically, yeah." Sam confirmed.

"Wait, sirens? You mean like mermaids right?" Harry joined in when something occurred to him.

"Yeah…" Sam trailed off questioningly.

"Not exactly Ariel material though." Dean said looking at him.

"They're not like that." Harry stated matter-of-factly.

That got their attentions and their so far drifting orbs focused on him, tuning out the rest of the strip bar.

"What?"

"How do you know that?" They both questioned at the same time.

"I've fought some of them before and they weren't like what you describe at all." Harry said fidgeting a bit under their overwhelming attentions.

"Wait, you've fought sirens before?" Dean said and Harry could practically see the blond man's blood boiling under the taut muscles of his arms.

"That's what I said, yes." Harry whispered thinking that maybe bringing that up with the two over-protective brothers hadn't been a really good idea.

"When?" Sam asked tightly.

"I was fourteen." And seeing their narrowed eyes, he quickly added, "But it was okay, you know, it was in a tournament. They were people watching, it was safe…" He lied unconvincingly.

"A tournament?" Dean said skeptically, "In your magic _school_?" Dean emphasized the word.

"Yes." He confirmed meekly.

"They let a fourteen years old boy fight in a tournament involving deadly creatures?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Well, it's complicated, don't we have a case? People dying? The sirens were probably just a different specie, maybe a magical one, it's not important, really." He ranted, to at least try to redirect the conversation on safer shores even when he knew it wouldn't work on them. When they were focused on someone, it was like you were the only important thing in the room.

"Damn right it's important." Dean exclaimed.

"The hunt will still be here at the end of the conversation Harry. Tell us." Sam ordered.

Harry closed his eyes and he folded because he knew, nothing will get him out of this now. Their previous tensions were apparently temporarily forgotten and they were moving as a united front to get the story out of him.

So he told them, his eyes glazed in remembrance, he told them about the cup, how he had been forced into playing even thought he was nowhere near the right age, how he had fought a dragon, mermaids and other mythical sea creatures in the Black Lake, how he had been shunned then adored, talking about Cedric's death between two painful gasps, his torture under the newly resurrected Voldemort, his voice a mere whisper at the end as he talked about his joke of a duel and his parent's ghosts saving him…

He lifted his eyes that had been fixing the table when he heard the table crack under a fist and the muffled curses said in two deep voices.

"You know, I've got the urge to go on a freaking _plane_ to merry old England to tell your goddamn headmaster, or whatever, a fucking piece of my mind." Dean growled with his eyes two chips of ice shining out of his tan features.

"Right with you on that one." Sam said, angrily tying off his tie, his eyes narrowed.

Harry smiled.

…

Sam had gone to see if the new convicted guy was another of the siren's victim while Dean and Harry stayed in the motel room to research what they could on the myth, a way to kill it. But Dean had been distracted and his eyes kept sliding off to his little brother's phone that Sam had left innocently on the table.

He watched, as Dean seemed to weight his options before taking the device in hand with a huff and an angry flick of his wrist.

He put it to his ear and Harry could clearly hear Ruby's annoying voice talk out of the speaker. Dean dropped the phone like it had burned him, bringing a close fist to his mouth as his lips formed a furious line and his pupils went tight in betrayal.

And Harry knew he had to do something, Dean was probably the only one who could; hopefully, if the taller hunter wasn't already wrapped around the demon chick's finger, make Sam see the truth of his ways.

"Dean." He said with a sigh, preparing himself for what had the potential to be an explosive conversation.

"What Harry?" Dean bit off.

"Sam…It's, he…"

Dean laughed bitterly, cutting him off, "What about Sammy? Come on. Lay it on me squirt, don't stall." The older brother said with a phony cheery voice.

"His aura, it's gone dark again and it's growing and I don-" Harry said desperately and in a rush because he didn't want the other interrupting him before he had told him all the facts. Dean was staring at him expectantly, his lips turned down, his brows furrowed and his green eyes simmering in anger.

But they were stopped when Sam loudly entered the room, they both looked at him, one with pleading emeralds, the other with badly hidden rage.

"Yeah, you… forgot your cell-phone." Dean said with a smile so fake Harry flinched.

Damn it.

…

_Wait in the car._

That's what they said and he hadn't liked it, not one bit. He felt like a kept dog for Merlin's sakes, the Impala felt narrow, stuffed and he watched as his breath turned the window foggy, breathing in…breathing out…

He had to get out of there.

He didn't care about whatever cosplay they had going on, it was a bloody hospital and he was damn well entitled to go in. He would just have to pretend he didn't know them and do his own thing.

He walked in with pounding steps; the white walls suddenly surrounding him blinded him for a second, the acrid smell of cleaning supplies, medicine and decay filling his nostrils until he almost went dizzy with it.

He scanned the entrance hall quickly but didn't see the brothers, Harry ventured past the threshold and he saw a man wearing a suit in the same style as the brothers when they would decide to go federal agents. He could feel his forehead crinkling in worry at the thought of the Winchesters getting caught so he pushed all semblance of shyness aside and went up to the suited young man, "Excuse me." He proclaimed at the man's back and as the agent turned he was suddenly hit by a dizzying wave of: _wrong_, _evil_, _blood_, _love_, _lust, murder._

"-yes?" He heard the voice breaking through his daze.

Harry must have zoned out.

"Ah…" He got out breathlessly, suddenly wanting to be out of the man's sight, anywhere away from him, "I'm sorry, I've got to go." He rushed out urgently already going back to the doorway only to be stop by a slimy hand holding him in a strong grip.

Oh no.

"No tell me, how can I help you?" The other said insistantly in a seemingly genuine voice that made his skin crawled.

Well, he figured he had to play dumb for now.

"Okay." He croaked before coughing and adding with a surprisingly steady voice, "Okay. I'm looking for two men in suits like yours, F.B.I agents, have you seen them around?" Harry questioned innocently, still avoiding the other's gaze.

"Oh yeah, one really tall and the other kind of pretty." The American man stated, "Yeah, I've seen them, you want me to help you look?" He offered politely.

Harry had had quite enough of this mascarade and he forcefully got out of the other's hold, not even deeming the siren, because that's what he must be, worthy of an answer as he opened the hospital's doors ready to march out and warn the other two.

He hadn't even got two steps away before a blow to the head came and the familiar darkness enveloped him.

Shit.

-00-

Sam realized he didn't have the patience for the hunt anymore, he was angry (_always so damn angry_) and tired to always slumber through the dark to piece all the clues together, he wanted to kill the monster and get out of this town and get it over with as quickly as possible.

He had a clear enemy in mind: Lilith.

He didn't know why he wanted her dead so much now, first it was because she had been the one holding Dean's contract, then it was because she wanted to kick start the Apocalypse but deep down, he knew these were just excuses. Dean was back now. She was the reason he had wandered so far and she was the reason he continued, if Sam didn't have her, he didn't have any justifications for his actions anymore. And he couldn't live with that.

Lilith had come to represent _the end_, for him at least. Like Azazel used to be for his father and it frightened him a little to see the resemblance between him and his dad growing more and more as time went by. His thirst for vengeance on the white-eyed little girl was what he used to despise John for, the obsessive gleam he could see in the mirror every morning was the same he used to see in his father's dark blue eyes when he would put weapons in the back of his truck.

Sam wondered what he would feel when Lilith was dead, because he _was_ going to kill her, would it curb his anger at last? Would he feel empty? Would he go back to college? Or would he continue to follow his brother in their never-ending circle of deaths?

Bottom-line was he wanted to stop perusing newspapers for silly cases; he wanted to search her out, drink a demon dry if he had to and kill the bitch.

But his brother wouldn't hear any of it, he knew, Dean would say they weren't ready, that they needed to save more people, that the angels were taking care of things, he snorted…Sometimes he couldn't help but think that his brother was being a coward because Dean was hiding behind all those well rehearsed sentences since he had come back from Hell and Sam was sick of it.

His brother wasn't the same anymore, _of course he wasn't_, Dean had been to _Hell_ but this realization had been a long time coming, it took months of observing his older brother, of watching him tossing in his sleep or not sleeping for days on end, of watching him with Harry, of watching him drink whole towns dry of whiskey, he had closed his eyes on it but now he knew and he hated it.

Now it was time for Sam to step up, whatever the angels said, Dean couldn't do it.

He could.

That's why he was spending so much time with Ruby, she had a way out, a solution, and a plan when the only thing Dean did was struggling with shadows all the time. Ruby listened to Sam, he wasn't _Sammy_ with her; she gave him the strength to take on a demon like Lilith in the form of a red bitter coppery liquid that he drank from greedily, keeping the form of a little possessed blond girl in his darken hazel orbs to keep the disappointed emeralds away from his troubled mind and the sick reality of what he was doing.

Cause it made him strong, invincible, confidant…_ready_.

It was the little thing too like how he didn't hesitate after seeing the flirting smile and coy look on the pretty doctor's face to reciprocate where he would have been a stuttered mess at the best of times.

Besides he wanted the haunting vision of pale sweaty skin twisting in the sheets, dark hair spilling over white pillows, jewel green eyes dark and hazy in lust, the moaning of his name "Sam" in that cursed accent out of his mind real fast.

Weakness he kept telling himself, he can't afford it, weakness Sam.

That's why the first opportunity he got, he send Dean out of his way with that fed.

Sam figured the doctor would do, it would be easy too, she looked more than willing: eyeing his broad shoulders, his shifting muscles under the suit, the hunger blatantly shining out of her brown orbs…

Yeah, she would do.

…

Sam was staggering back to the motel room after he had pounded his frustrations away into the warm folds of Cara, he felt something was wrong as soon as he opened the door and the lights were out and there were neither hide nor hair of neither Dean nor Harry, "Dean? Harry?" He foolishly called out anyway.

Quickly fishing out his cell and calling his brother, he winced as soon as he heard the angry huffs coming from the other side of the line, "Sam? Where the hell have you been?"

He calmly took a breath to keep himself from snapping right back at his stupid, controlling brother, "With Cara." He stated.

Silence followed by an incredulous strangled breath, "Oh, its Cara now? And you're not answering your phone?" The accusations clear in Dean's deep voice.

He closed his eyes and let out a frustrated breath, "We were trying to find the blood samples, someone stole em'."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Dean growled out.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He carefully said, from the state the older hunter was in, he obviously needed to tread cautiously lest they wasted their times in an unneeded (_or not_) fight.

"Nick found flower petals at the crime scene: hyacinth." Dean informed him.

"So?" Sam asked impatiently.

"Hyacinth. Mediterranean from the, from the island where the whole freaking Siren myth started in the first place." Dean recited.

"Ok?" He shook his head.

"Sam, Cara had hyacinth flowers." Dean finally said.

He couldn't be serious, "You think Cara is the siren?" He said skeptically, almost laughing.

"Well, I did a little checking up on her: she's only been in town for two months." Dean said like it meant everything, which, no, it didn't mean squat.

"Yeah, and?" He said barely keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.

"And she has an ex-husband. A _dead_ ex-husband, Carl Roberts who dropped like a stone, no warning: supposedly a heart attack." Dean said all satisfied; Sam could almost see his brother's smug smile from here, surprisingly good research but still not enough.

"Well, maybe it was a heart attack." Sam said bursting his older brother's bubble.

"You're kidding me." Dean said, his voice dropping till it was a dark rumble sound coming out of the phone's speaker.

"Look, I just don't think it's her." He stated sure of himself.

"And what makes you so sure?" Dean asked and he really didn't want his brother to know he had slept with her but he knew he couldn't lie for shit about that particular subject.

"I don't know…a hunch." He said resigned.

"A hunch?" His brother repeated mockingly and Sam glared at the red walls of the bedroom. "I'm giving you cold hard facts here, and you give me a hunch?" Dean exclaimed bordering on true anger.

Sam was silent.

A hiss and, "Did you sleep with her?" Was the breathless question.

He could always try, "No." He said and Sam winced at the slightly more high-pitched tone his voice had taken on the word.

"Holy crap you did." Dean said darkly, "Middle of Basic Instincts and you bang Sharon Stone. Sam, you could be under her spell right now!"

Sam rolled his eyes, this was getting ridiculous, "Dude, I'm not under her spell." He enunciated clearly.

"Unbelievable man, I just don't get it." Dean whispered like he was talking to himself.

"What?" He asked irritably, finally snapping.

"Nothing." Was his response.

And no, no, not this time, "No, say it."

"No, it's just, first it's Maddison and then Ruby and now Cara. It's like what is with you and banging monsters?" Dean said, his voice getting stronger as his righteousness came through.

Oh how he wanted to punch the words back in his brother's mouth as he said the werewolf's name so carelessly. Dean had never really understood all the feelings Maddison had left him with and Sam had never be forthcoming with them but damn it, his brother could be such a fucking jerk sometimes, "Look Dean, I'm telling you, it's not Cara. I feel fine." He said as patiently as he could.

"Oh I bet you do." Dean muttered darkly.

"You don't trust me." He stated more than asked cause he could feel Dean's unnerving gaze on him at all hours of the day and it was certainly not trust he could see in the jade orbs lately.

"No! This could be the siren talkin'." Dean said like he was talking to a toddler.

"Look just tell me where you are. I, I'll come meet you both and we'll figure things out." He said reasonably enough, actively trying to keep his teeth from grinding and his jaw from clenching.

Silence.

"No." Dean said with finality. "And 'both'? I'm alone here." He added in confusion.

Sam felt his stomach dropping at the answer then Dean's question caught up with him and foreboding worry replaced the rage he had felt raising hot and sharp at his brother's order, "Harry not with you?" He asked dreading the answer.

"No." Dean said confused at the quick turn in the conversation. Sam closed his eyes, "Wait. I thought he was with you?" His brother asked harshly, the reality of Sam's question actually beating into him.

"No." Sam whispered back breathless, "He's not in the motel room."

Silence and he could imagine his brother's eyes narrowing, his hands turning white gripping the wheel, "He wasn't in the car when I came back out of the hospital earlier and I thought he went in, Nick said he saw a dark-haired teen entered… She must have taken him, the bitch!" Dean suddenly growled in fury.

"Dean! She's not; I was with her the whole time. It's not her. Listen I'm going to try and call him alright?" He said trying to make sense of what was happening, he could feel his fists trembling, his grip on the phone becoming painful.

He heard harsh breaths on the other side, "Okay, okay. Look man, I'm handling the siren side here and you go search for Harry okay?"

"Dean-"

"You call me when you found him."

The line clicked shut and Sam slowly got up from his spot on the bed.

Letting out a roar, he threw the offending device into the mirror.

Fuck.

-00-

Dean was freaking out, after his frustrating conversation with his maybe spellbound brother he had called Bobby thinking that maybe his gruff accented voice would help him keep a level-head but to no avail: Bobby hadn't answered and the same could be said about Harry. He had tried to reach the wayward green-eyed man a hundred times already and a heady mix of anxiety and deep-seated worry was slowly but surely creeping in.

He couldn't afford that cause he had to take care of the siren right now, people to save, case to close but damn was it hard, he couldn't care less about the bitch or the stupid morons who went to strip clubs when Harry was MIA.

He wanted the other back, _now_.

"God", He chocked out, gripping his hair and flexing his fingers on the wheel compulsively, Harry could be _anywhere_ right now, he thought frantically, he could have been _kidnapped_ by the siren, he could have even been taken by _fucking demons_ while Dean had been drinking shots surrounded by naked girls and agonizing over his broken relationship with his little brother, Jesus, he was such a fucking asshole.

It had been four hours since he had left the hospital.

Harry could be _dead_ by now.

Dean floored on the gas.

…

"You'll just have to trust me." Dean stated because even though he liked the guy, he was in no mood to explain himself, he wanted the doctor to get out of the bar and then either he wanted to torture her to know where she had stashed Harry or just cut her fucking head off so he could go and help Sam find the other as quickly as possible.

"Yeah, okay, I guess." Nick said and Dean actually stopped and looked at him intensely for a couple of seconds cause he hadn't heard that say to him in what felt like forever and he had forgotten how it felt.

"Thank you." He said and he was, he really was, "That's actually nice to hear." He said a little less thankful, a little more bitter as he deeply drink from his flask, the burn from the alcohol not dimming the fear he was feeling for the younger man at all and Dean passed it to Nick angrily.

He took it back and drunk from it again automatically, emerald flashing before his eyes.

"So let's say, she is drugging her vics. How is she pulling that off?" Nick asked staring at him.

"Passing the toxin through, ah, through physical contact." Dean said absently.

"Or, it could be…the saliva." Dean turned at the odd phrasing, meeting a little smug smile and a hungry gleam in the man's dark eyes as he was stared at intensely.

Shit.

"You really should have washed the lip of that thing before you drink from it Dean." Nick whispered chastising.

Son of a bitch.

Harry.

He turned to look at the trunk of the car, realization dawning on him, his stomach dropping and his palms sweating.

"Oh yeah, I took the little magic boy. He knew too much." Dean turned in his seat fixing the man with as much wrath as he could muster. He was rewarded by a tender loving smile twisting the young features innocently, the streetlights reflecting on the black beady eyes creepily as they fixed him, the sound of the rain dropping on the car washed away by the hypnotic voice, "But you don't need him like you need me, like you need a little brother. I should be your little brother, _Sam_… You can't trust him. Not like you can trust me. In fact, I really feel like you should get him out of the way, so that _we_ can be brothers. _Forever_."

Yes.

Nick was perfect as a little brother.

So much more than Sam could ever hope to be.

-00-

Harry woke up slowly, groggily opening his eyes but he snapped them open quickly, and the sudden light blinded him, when he felt that his hands were tied above him. He was actually back in the motel room, sitting on his bed tied and gagged.

He scanned the red colored bedroom frantically, his eyes shifting all over the place, Dean was leaning on the wall by the door, not looking at him and he pleaded and implored with his eyes for the older man to look over at him but it didn't work. Dean was obviously not Dean at the moment and that made him whimper behind his cloth-covered mouth.

The sound brought the attention of the siren, that he hadn't seen sitting behind him on the other bed, to him, "Ah, you're finally awake I see, good. Wouldn't want anyone to miss the show right?"

Harry glared and tried to convey how much he despised him but the gag didn't help at all, "Mmmfh!"

The siren smirked and ran his eyes all over his form, he shuddered from the look in those dead gleaming eyes, "Unfortunately I can't let you run your English mouth, see, I'm afraid maybe that will snap the brothers out of my control and we can't have that, can we?"

Harry stopped his struggling and looked over at the monster with confused green orbs.

"How do you do it? I mean wizards don't have any venom as far as I know." He said, his eyes turning contemplative, "Never mind, you can't answer anyway and oh, I hear our dear Sam coming."

His struggles began anew but the siren glanced teasingly at him for his fruitless efforts before putting a finger in front of his lips in the universal sign of silence, "Enjoy the show." He added with a flourish.

Harry heard the lock turning and stared at the door in apprehension before glancing horrifyingly at the knife Dean was holding, poised to strike.

Sam appeared at the entrance staring first confusingly at the suited monster, "Nick? What are you doing here?"

Harry made a muffled shout and the tall man turned his eyes, "Har-"

Sam hadn't had the time to finish before Dean closed the door and jumped on him from behind, putting the wicked looking knife on his vulnerable throat, the younger brother struggled in the strong grip, "Dean!"

While Harry continued to shout uselessly, Sam stopped fighting to stare at him and the green-eyed man could see the anger at his disposition slowly darkening his hazel orbs until they were filled in heated rage that warmed Harry as much as it scared him.

Sam fastened his gaze on the approaching enemy, smirking, "I got to tell ya, you're one butt-ugly stripper." He stated huffing amusingly even as he choked under the growing pressure of Dean's arm.

"Hmm, maybe. But I got exactly what I wanted. I got Dean." Nick said gesturing to the hypnotized man like he was a piece of meat which made Harry bristle and punch the wooden pole he was attached to.

Sam and Nick both looked over at him and the siren chuckled in twisted glee at his predicament, "Oh I also got a wizard as a bonus. Tell me Sam, do you like bondage?" The siren said staring meaningfully at the furious hunter.

Harry felt like he was missing something here.

Sam stared at him for what felt like an eternity but was probably seconds with an intense indefinable light in his eyes before he turned to his brother desperate and breathless, "Come on Dean, this isn't you. You can fight this. _Let me go_."

The siren prowled to Dean slowly and leaning into the man's ear said breathily and somewhat seductively, "Why don't you…cut him, just a little, on his neck right there."

Dean obeyed.

Harry looked away, rage-filled tears slowly building in the back of his eyes.

"Dean's all mine." The thing stated and Harry turned back to the situation they were facing, he had spent years after years under torture, he could start torturing himself, he thought darkly.

"You poisoned him." Sam spat.

"No I gave him what he needed." The siren said seriously, actually believing himself, the wanker, "And it wasn't some bitch in a g-string. It was you."

Harry closed his eyes in despair as Sam took the bait.

"A little brother that looked up to him… And now he loves me. He'd do anything for me, and I got to tell you, Sam, Harry." He added looking back at him with sick pleasure coating his every word, "That kind of devotion: watching someone kill for you. It's the best feeling in the world." And the pulsing red aura kept growing and growing as he talked until Harry was gasping for breath that he couldn't quite take.

Sam glanced at him in worry before going back to their tormentor, "So what? You sluttin' all over town?"

"Ahh, I get bored." He said mock whispering, "Like we all do. And I wanna fall in love again. And again, and again." The siren said, his true visage flashing at the honest admission.

"Tell you what. I've fought some nasty sons of bitches but you are one needy, pathetic loser." Sam said, obviously following some plan he had cooked up in his frightening mind as he waited for the man to really lose control, baiting him and gaining some time.

At least, Harry dearly hoped so.

"You won't feel that way in a minute." The other said, taking Sam's jaw with lightning fast rapidity, his limb shooting out at Sam's declaration.

Harry hadn't seen that coming and he tried to do something, he had been chanting _Solvo_ in his mind for the last minutes trying to make his wandless, wordless magic do something but it wasn't really working, he could sometimes feel the bindings move but it was fleeting. The fact that his mind was all over the place as he saw Sam getting injected didn't help him in his efforts.

When he saw the lights going out of the hazel eyes, dimming, as they grew vacant, he slumped defeated and fell back on the bed utterly drained and frustrated.

His eyes tiredly went to the siren as he dragged Sam towards him, "So I know you two have a lot you want to get off your chests. So why don't you two discuss it. And whoever survives can be with me _forever_."

Harry forgot his tiredness in a second, his eyes wild as he looked from one brother to the other, their seething eyes and fuming nostrils were enough answer for him to know what he had already known: it was going to get bloody.

He had never hated a monster so much and so viciously, maybe not even Voldemort.

"I promised you a show, didn't I?" It said to him, eyes flashing wickedly.

He didn't even deign him of a look, he only watched horrified and desperate as the brothers took fighting stances, circling each other, "Oh I don't know when it happened. Maybe when I was in Hell, maybe when I was staring right at you. But the Sam I knew: _he's gone_." Dean started with a deep heart-wrenching voice.

"That so?" Sam said in an annoyingly rebellious tone.

"And it's not the _demon blood_, or the _sykick crap_. It's the little stuff: the lies, the secrets-" Dean announced with real hurt making his voice wobbly and his eyes glassy.

"Oh yeah? What secrets?" Sam asked, cutting his brother off with a smug tilt of his head.

"Your phone calls to Ruby for one." Dean said matter-of-factly.

"So what? I need your say-so to make a phone call." Sam responded without missing a beat.

"That's the point, you're hiding things from me. What else aren't you telling me?" Dean asked with dread.

"None of your business." Sam bit back, smirking.

"See what I mean." Dean gritted between clenched teeth, "We used to be in this _together_, we used to have _each other's backs_."

"Okay fine. You know why I didn't tell you about Ruby? How we're hunting down Lilith. Because you're _too_ _weak_ to go after her _Dean_, you're holding me back. I'm a better hunter than you are, _stronger_, _smarter_. I can take out demons that you _too scared to go near_." Sam growled, articulating each word so that they could make the most damage and his words were like blows after blows and Harry flinched repeatedly as Sam said them like he wanted to beat them into Dean.

Dean for his part kept his ground, the blank face that Harry had been dreading firmly in place and it was somehow worse than if Dean had been shouting, "That's crap." He whispered fixing his brother with the same fake emotionless eyes he had been sporting since the beginning.

Harry had his stomach tightening into unbreakable knots, his ears ringing from what was being said, his eyes tearful, his throat contracting, his mouth dry and his tongue tied painfully behind the offending appendage blocking his mouth.

Sam unmercifully plowed on, "You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Whining about all the _souls_ you tortured in Hell. Boo-hoo." The tall man said mockingly with a twisted up-turn of his lips that transformed the usually soft features into the cruel, ugly thing that was standing in the middle of the room.

Harry had had enough, he whimpered and thrashed, he wanted his hands free right now, not to stop the brothers but to cover his ears or just tore them out of his head.

It seemed it was the last straw for Dean as well and he opened the eyes that he had closed to see the older brother lunging for Sam.

He couldn't do anything.

He watched transfixed, wide-eyed and unable to look away as they fought like beats. As Dean beat his little brother like he would one of the monsters they hunt, as Sam kicked him to the ground only to pick him up again and dropping fists after fists on Dean's handsome face, not either of them relenting until they had kicked the door down.

He heard glass breaking and he strained to see what was happening but then he heard the siren say, "Do it."

Harry could guess what was about to happen and no, no, _no_. He quickly searched for the familiar warm sensation of his magic, finding it; he pooled it with all the force of his chaotic emotions and sending it to his hands…the ropes burned.

Not even removing the gag he launched himself out of the bed to the threshold stopping still at what he was witnessing, Sam was on the ground panting and Dean was holding a fireman axe over him, "Tell me again how weak I am Sam. How I hold you back!" Dean swiftly and with an expert move that comes from having to do that sort of thing on an almost day-to-day basis, lifted the axe for a killing strike.

Harry shouted behind the cloth as Sam whimpered putting two protective hands in front of him, he didn't think, just acted: he threw himself in front of Dean in a furry of limbs, grasping the weapon mid-blow and slightly wavering at the force the older man had put behind it.

Dean stilled and the murderous rage he had been in just a mere moment ago seemed to clear away as he fixed Harry with two intense unfathomable hazel-green eyes, "Harry." The hunter whispered breathlessly.

It was enough.

Bobby came and Harry was a tad jealous he was the one who had the pleasure of killing the hideous cow.

…

"Dean, you know I didn't mean the things I said back there, right? That it was just the siren's spell talking."

"Of course, me too."

Harry was tempted to _Obliviate_ them.

"'Kay so, we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good."

Not.

…

Everything was done but _nothing was resolved_.

Harry was lying awake in bed in the motel room they had stopped after what had probably been the shortest ride they had ever taken, as Dean seemed unable to stay in his brother's presence for longer than what was necessary. He tossed and turned and couldn't find it in himself to slip into Morpheus' realm, not right now.

He pondered and thought till his mind was filled with dark conclusions and the ugly voice in the back of his mind was a constant whine: _burden_, _freak_, _useless_… It was the words that were caught in a constant loop, keeping him from finding sleep.

After several hours of that, Harry had decided that he was more of a hindrance to the brothers than an asset. Oh he knew it wasn't his fault they were at each other's throats all the bloody time but he couldn't help but feel he wasn't helping at all, that he dragged them down, that he was another _reason_ for them to fight over and he, _more than anything_, didn't want that. They obviously had issues that couldn't be talked over or solved with him in their way; they needed to be alone for that, as _family_.

And he wasn't.

He could try with all his might for all his life; he wouldn't ever be a _Winchester_.

With those thoughts circling in his head, the lights dimming from his usually glowing eyes and his heart tearing just a little in his chest, he slowly got out of bed, put his jeans back on, took his pouch, his wand, wrote an elusive note and made his way to the door with careful steps.

Harry was at the door, his hand already on the doorknob when lights flooded the room.

His shoulders slumped, his eyes closed and his hand tightened around the knob.

He should have known, he should have bloody known. They were _hunters_ for Merlin's sakes, he thought mentally scolding his idiocy.

"Harry?" Said a rough, sleep induced voice, the slight southern tang rolling warmly around his name.

"Hmm, what's going on?" Said another, lighter one.

He hunched his back and steadied himself to determinedly walk out anyway.

The door clicked.

"What are you doing?" Dean said alarm entering the question as he heard both of the now fully awake brothers scrambled up and out of their respective beds.

Harry opened the door, still ignoring them and trying to magically make himself deaf.

It wasn't working and a hand came into his line of vision, violently pushing the door close, "What the hell man?" Dean questioned forcefully.

"Harry?" Sam asked uncertainly and with a fragile edge to it that was never heard in the younger man's voice nowadays.

He dropped his forehead to the slightly cool wood of the door.

He felt a strong hand gripping his shoulder from behind as he stubbornly kept his back to them otherwise he knew, the moment he would see their eyes, it would be over, he would lose.

"Look at me." Dean ordered and the desperate tinge it got made him slowly turn, his eyes downcast.

"Hey, come on Harry. Look at us." Sam whispered softly like he was a scared animal they shouldn't spook. "_Please_." The taller male added after a beat with an oddly tender tone that was at odds with what he had dubbed 'Not-Sam''s behavior earlier.

As asked of him, he raised his eyes and fastened them quickly on a far wall, avoiding their searching orbs with calculated ease.

"What is this?" Dean asked roughly and he could see his crumpled note being waved in his line of sight.

"A note." He said back neutrally.

A strangled breath was taken on his left, "Yeah a note saying _you're leaving_." A sharp intake of air on his right, "That's right Sam, Harry was going to _leave us_, no saying _where_, no saying _why_. Just up and leave, _just like that_. To god only knows where, wait, I know where…" Dean said in a fake cheery comprehending tone, "Where we wouldn't be able to _protect him_! It's an all out _war_ out there squirt, what in the fuck do you actually think you're doing?!" His voice getting steadily stronger and angrier the longer he talked till the older man was almost shouting.

"I'm leaving okay! You can't force me to stay and you _don't need me here_ so I'm going and _you can't stop me_!" His accent getting stronger in his indignant anger as he locked his gaze on Dean's furious green eyes marching until they were breathing erratically chest to chest and he had to look up to continue to hold the other one's stare, "And I'm a wizard, Dean, I can bloody well take care of myself. I've done precisely that for years."

Dean snorted crudely, his eyes a bit wild, "Oh yeah? Well it didn't look that way when you were freaking _kidnapped_ by the fucking siren earlier did it?" He said mockingly back.

Harry wasn't having any of that, "Piss-poor job of _protecting me_ there." He snarled right back without missing a beat.

Dean stumbled back at that like his words physically hurt him, staring at him in horror.

And Harry floundered, how could he put such a look in the older man's face, he knew it was Dean's weakness, not being able to keep the ones he held dear safe, "_Dean_." He called out desperately, "Dean I didn't mean that, forget I said it."

"No you're right." The other whispered with a self-depreciating voice.

"No I'm not. _I'm wrong_. It was uncalled for and not true at that. _It wasn't your fault_." Harry cried out.

"I should ha-" The taller man was saying with a vacant look in his hazel-green orbs.

"I said _no_! You couldn't have and it's done now, I got careless, I got out of the car when you both told me not to, I got caught. _It's my own bloody fault_ so don't blame yourself." He ordered trying to shake some sense into Dean by going to grip his arm at the hand of his rant.

Dean stared searching in his eyes before he seemed to find what he was looking for and he weakly nodded.

"Guys, calm down." Sam said soothingly after the silence had stretched long enough and both Dean and Harry startled at his intervention, having forgotten he was even there during their stand off. They looked over at him to see him awkwardly standing too tall in the middle of the motel room, "Now, why do you want to leave Harry? Is it because of the son of a bitch's spell? And why did you say we didn't need you here?" Sam questioned calmly, his even tone somewhat calming his frazzled nerves and wayward magic that had begun to make the furniture rattled during their ravings.

He stepped out of Dean's personal space to be able to see them both, "Ah, it's, it's just, I don't really _want_ to leave… Okay, it's a bit about what happened earlier because whatever you say about the fact that it was the allure talking and that you're good. _You're not_." He put a hand up to stop the exclamations before it even reached their lips, "No listen, you need to work things out and my being here isn't helping you guys alright. It's not, I'm more of a, of a weight on your shoulders, one you can't afford to have so I figured I'd leave and probably go to Bobby's to help you from there or I don't know…" He said trailing off.

Silence.

Then, "That's bullshit!" Dean exclaimed and he startled at the sudden outburst, looking over at the spiky- haired man who was looking right at him with incredulous disbelief painted on his bruised face.

Harry then turned to Sam who wore an understanding look but still mixed with a bit of surprised, "He's right Harry, you're far from the burden you insinuate you are and okay maybe we're not that good right now. And I _promise_ we'll talk about it and see, that wouldn't have happened if you weren't there, would it?" Sam questioned smiling winningly at him with his still slightly bloodied lips, it was a smile he couldn't help but to respond to with a small one of his own, the other's widened significantly when he saw it. "But seriously, we need you here." Sam stated.

"Hmm, damn right we do and besides even if I know you can do all kinds of shit with your mojo, I'd still prefer you with us with Alastair running around top-side and all the other demons, even angels in a tizzy over the Apocalypse, it's _not safe_ out there okay. Just, _don't go_." Dean said with a no non-sense kind of voice, staring at the window nervously shifting and Harry had to smile at the obvious Dean-like gesture. "_Please_." Dean added hoarsely as if hearing his thoughts, snapping his eyes onto him intensely.

"Okay." Harry whispered.

"Okay?" They both asked.

"Yeah."

The two brilliant genuine smiles he received were worth it.

He had been right anyway, he had been lost the moment he had raised his bright viridian eyes to meet Dean's pleading green and Sam's soothing hazel.

…

Harry was sweating in the back of the Impala, he was feverish and coughing and something was really, deeply wrong in this town.

He could hear the brothers talking about his condition in the front seats, "Dean, this can't be a coincidence, Harry got sick the moment we passed the city line."

"I know, I know okay." Was the worried reply and he saw their eyes kept going to the rearview mirror, from their fear-filled glances, he must have been a sight.

"Something's not right." He said between two coughing fits.

"No shit Sherlock." Dean sarcastically said to mask his anxiety.

He wasn't fooling anyone.

"No, I mean, in the air, can't you feel it? It's everywhere. Death isn't here." Harry didn't know what compelled him to whisper the last one, but the atmosphere permeating the small town was missing the coldness he could feel everywhere else and he now realized it was Death: the balance wasn't present.

"What, what do you mean?" Sam asked urgently turning in his seat to properly stare at him.

But Harry couldn't answer as he doubled in his seat and his throat felt like it was on fire, he put a hand in front of his mouth and after the spasms subsided he looked down at his pale limb to see it covered in crimson blood.

He lifted his head.

The car went faster.

…

The brothers came back from their little ritual ("_strange lives_") with a concussed Dean watching his brother suspiciously and a Sam without a scratch claiming he wasn't keeping secrets.

Apparently Alastair was in town so this meant it was big-game, _Revelations_ style and Harry was as defenseless as a newborn baby, great, just what they needed: a sodding _seal_.

Dean came up with the most crazy, idiotic and moronic idea Harry had ever heard and he didn't know why he was even surprised by it, Dean had been a mother-hen ever since he had the first symptoms of sickness and the older hunter clearly wanted him to get better real fast so if they had to become ghost then they would become spirits.

Sometimes Harry was amazed at Dean's thought process, he was going to call it: _Dean Logic_.

Harry had valiantly protested getting Pamela into this; he didn't want to involve anybody else in their Apocalypse squabble, especially not the psychic but he was already too tired to put too much of a fight and he had been quelled by the two glares aimed at him for his efforts.

He had a feeling he was going to regret this.

_Where was Cas when you needed him?_

…

"Well, lie down heroes." Said a reluctant Pamela then she fixed Harry with her annoyingly knowing black glasses, "It's gonna be simpler with you joining the two morons."

"What?" He coughed, she just unnervingly smirked at him and they all rolled their eyes before doing as they were told.

This was creepy, he thought as he watched his body lying next to an unmoving Dean.

"You're glowing." He heard Sam say and he startled looking back at them to see neither of them was '_glowin_g' and they were staring at him with surprised wonder and he looked down at himself only to see his hands were bright, as if light up from the inside.

"Huh. Must be my magic right?" He asked anxiously.

"Yeah right." Dean whispered in awe.

They all looked at each other and shrugged.

Best not to dwell on it.

…

Harry was a little bit queasy watching the woman reaper kissed Dean, the fact that the older man knew one was deeply worrying but _what else is new_?

"Tessa." Dean whispered breathlessly, it nodded its deceptively beautiful face before focusing on him and he took a step back a little behind Sam because he didn't like the light in her calm grey eyes.

"_Harry Potter_." She said following his retreat until she was standing right in front of him and he could see both of the brothers tensed and fists clenched on either sides of the room, "You know, the big boss has been looking for you for a _very long time_." She said tilting her head and punctuating her word like he should know why Death, scythe holding, black cape and skeleton for a body _Death_ had been searching for little old insignificant him.

"What? Why?" Harry asked staring into her sparkling eyes and watching as a little smile formed on her face at his lack of knowledge.

"Huh, you don't know. You have no idea." She stated, whispering in realization.

"What the hell are you talkin' about Tessa?" Dean growled in the background but she paid him no mind still staring at Harry with what could be fascination.

"What should he know?" Sam added biting his words and narrowing his eyes on her pretty form.

"That your little green-eyed companion is-"

Black billowing smoke filled the room.

-00-

Dean waved his arms in a uselessly painfully human manner in front of himself, he looked around seeing little Cole, Sam and…

"Harry." Dean called out urgently before he ran smashing the front door open and seeing the black smoke disappearing in a corner, he had already a foot outside the house ready to go smash some demons that thought they could take Harry away before the big hands of his brother stopped him in his tracks.

"Dean, calm down. We can't go now, we need to _practice_ so that then we can save Harry." Sam declared and Dean snorted when he said to calm down as his brother's voice was rushed and on the edge of panic. But Dean realized scornfully that his little brother was right.

They turned around and stared down at the kid.

"What?" Cole asked self-consciously.

They smiled.

…

Being a ghost was kind of awesome and he oddly felt for all the ones he had torched in the past.

As this thought passed fleetingly in his mind, well he began to think that if he could walk around as a ghost and think it was perfectly _normal_, then maybe, he was _different_. It seemed everybody was killing themselves saying it to him, first Sam then Tessa…

And okay maybe he wasn't a regular _Joe The Plumber_, as he would like to think he was, he would like to think he was like anybody else but truth was, he wasn't and probably wouldn't ever be.

But it was _hard_; he didn't want to think he was an exception that he had been _chosen_ even if he was painfully aware of it, he was just, _just Dean_: he liked porn, sex, pies, beers, his car and his family…and he sometimes ganked werewolves for breakfast…

Okay.

The only one who hadn't tried to beat this notion into his thick head was Harry and _God, fuck, damn it, Harry._

It was the second time he got kidnapped under their watch and the green-eyed man's outburst from last week came painful and sharp into his mind.

He didn't like it, not one bit; Dean wouldn't forgive himself if something happened to Harry, _not ever_.

Harry who was with Alastair right now, the bastard doing god knows what to him and they needed to learn how to make things move with their minds while he was probably _getting tortured_, he wouldn't put it past the demon to torn up his pale skin for a bit before breaking his goddamn seal.

_And where were the dicks with wings?_

…

They arrived at the funeral home that was shining like a beacon in the center of the town.

They entered and saw Tessa and the creepy old reaper lying unconsciously on the ground with no Harry in sight.

Iron.

How could they have not think of that, they were _hunters_ for fuck's sakes they should have known demons knew about it too.

And as if things couldn't get any worst, Alastair appeared all smug and deep nasal voice, a limp Harry in his grasp.

A beastly growl was ripped out of his chest as Sam burned himself yanking the chains.

"Find the place okay." His white eyes rolling in their sockets in a weirdly harmonious vibe with how grey the world were at the moment.

Alastair prowled like a predator till' he was standing at the edge of the iron, Harry still in his arms.

"Why don't you try some of your mojo now hotshot?" And what, what the fuck was the asshole talking about now, he thought looking sideways at a seething Sam, "It's hard to get it up when you're not wearin' your meat, huh." And Dean really couldn't care less about his little brother's secrets now when Harry's chest was just barely moving and for all he knew he was in the brink of death and Dean was bound by fucking iron and rock-salt bullets.

Alastair followed his line of vision to the sill figure in his arms, "Doesn't he look peaceful? He was just there for the taking, you should have know I couldn't _resist Harry_, Dean."

"Go to hell." Sam hissed out.

"Oh, if only I could but they just keep sending me back up to this crap hole." Alastair spat hatefully, "But it wouldn't be funny if I kept our little bundle asleep would it now?" As he said that like it was a damn show, Alastair put two fingers on Harry's thin chest and the younger man woke up flailing in Alastair's hold who dropped him to the ground.

Harry breathed raggedly on the marble floor before Alastair took him back in his fittingly cruel looking meat-suit, the demon gripped his neck with one long fingered hand, the other holding a scythe? It certainly looked like it. Harry's back to the other's chest, his neck on a narrow shoulder, his throat bending at an awkward angle till he was choking, "Finally with us _sleeping beauty_?" Alastair whispered in Harry's small left hear in a twisted mockery of a lover's move, staring gleefully at their helplessly raging forms.

"But!" Alastair exclaimed with a flourish before they could hiss at him to let Harry go, the white-eyed demon threw Harry to them, the smaller male crying out as he passed the iron and they quickly scrambled to help him back up.

"Tsk, tsk, you're distracting me sweetheart." Alastair crooned reprimanding staring at Harry with twisted pleasure. "Let's get this show on the road."

…

"You're different."

Fuck. You.

"You're going to a better place kid."

He was such a liar.

"Something nasty is coming down the road. Trust your instincts Dean, there's no such thing as miracles."

Cryptic bitch.

…

Dean and Harry woke up gasping, a scream caught halfway up their throats.

He was still reeling from all that had happened before he heard a painful gasp coming from his right. Harry heard it too as he scrambled up in alarm to the other bed kneeling in front of Pamela, "_Pamela_." Harry whispered seeing the blood coating her fingers red and staining her shirt.

"Dean where is Tessa?" Sam asked urgently.

Dean looked at him at loss for words, "She's…"

"Pamela I'm _so sorry_." Sam whispered with his old worn sympathy shining through and Dean knew it was over, she was lost and whatever words they could come up with were rehearsed lies.

"I told you, I didn't want anything to do with this." She said her voice weak and wobbling and Dean could practically see her life getting sucked out of her with every painful breath she took.

"Take it easy Pamela." Dean could already feel the familiar guilt and known blame pooling inside of him, they were almost his freaking _companions_ by now…

Harry was whispering now, "No, no, _no_." A litany of denials as he gripped her delicate hand in his equally fragile one.

"It's alright, everybody gotta go sometime kiddo." Pamela said drinking one last gulp and patting his hand before she gripped his little brother fiercely and whispered forcefully in his ear, something that was obviously shaking his brother to his core if the sudden tensing of his muscles was anything to go by.

"No!" Harry denied suddenly standing up and pushing Sam away from her in his desperation as he kneeled in front of her, pushing her hand out of the way and putting both of his in its place and the dark-haired male started chanting, his head ducked hiding his eyes that Dean knew would be glowing and murmuring in Latin as light started to pore out of his hands.

"Stop." Pamela whispered, before putting more force behind her voice, "You're gonna kill yourself!"

That made both Dean and Sam pulled out of their stupors and they each took one of his arms but the stubborn wizard was apparently amazingly strong when he wanted to be, "_Stop_ Harry!" He ordered desperate.

"Harry!" Sam added pleading gruffly.

But the lithe male just kept on going, muttering and chanting as bright light finally filled the entire room and they dropped his arms to shield their vulnerable eyes.

Dean opened them up slowly to find Pamela barely alive but _breathing_.

Harry was on the floor unconscious and his chest was awfully still, "Harry." He whispered horrified dropping on his knees next to his limp form.

"He alive?" Sam croaked, eyes closed.

Dean put his trembling hands on his pale long neck, only to find… "A pulse!" He exclaimed and he was so relieved he thought he could goddamn _faint_. He heard Sam releasing a long drawn out breath, "Fuck." His brother whispered staring at Harry's limp body in his lap.

"Yeah, don't you do that _ever again_ squirt." Dean whispered lowly and threateningly in his ear.

"Get her to a hospital." He ordered his little brother who, for once, nodded obediently.

And as Dean stared at Harry's slack limbs and he saw Sam bringing Pamela to the doctors, loosely holding her in his long arms, he thought back to Cas's words from not a long time ago and thought,

This didn't feel like victory at all.


End file.
